POPULATION DYNAMICS AND MORPHOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF LICE IN COMMERCIAL LAYER CHICKEN

Abstract

Poultry is a promising sector in Bangladesh that is growing at a rapid pace and has grown to become the most important and advanced segment of the livestock sector in the country. Commercial poultry is infected with a variety of parasites. As a result, the goal of this research was to look into the population dynamics and morphological identification of lice in commercial poultry farms of Kishoreganj, Gazipur, Mymensingh, Tangail and Narsingdi. From November 2020 to April 2021, a total of 245 layer chickens were examined for lice infestation. All the lice were identified microscopically at the Laboratory of Microbiology and Parasitology. A total of 149 chickens (60.81 %) were infested with lice out of 245 evaluated. During the study, four lice species were identified: Menacanthus stramineus, Menopon gallinae from sub-order Amblycera and Gnoiocotes gallinae, Lipeurus caponis from sub-order Ischinocera. Among them, M. stramineus was the most prevalent species (60.78%) detected in breast and thigh, followed by M. gallinae (49.02%) in body feathers, L. caponis (34.90%) in wing feather and G. gallinae (15.03%) in fluff. The highest prevalence of lice was found in Gazipur (83.93%) followed by Mymensingh (80.65%), Tangail (72.73%), Narsingdi (66.67%). No lice were detected in Kishoreganj. This research strongly suggests that poultry lice are a major problem in commercial poultry chicken. It is indeed necessary to develop an effective control measure to improve output of commercial poultry in Bangladesh.