Evaluation of amprolium and toltrazuril efficacy in controlling natural intestinal rabbit coccidiosis

Abstract

This trial was undertaken with the objective to evaluate the efficacy of amprolium, toltrazuril and their combination in rabbits naturally infected with Eimeria species (32 × 10 ³ ± 4.63 oocysts per gram (OPG) of faeces). Thirty-six rabbits (11 weeks old with average body weight (BW) 2000 ± 75 g), were randomly allocated into six groups (six kits each), namely, negative untreated and was retained as negative control (group 1), infected and kept untreated (group 2), treated with single oral dose of amprolium at 50 mg/kg BW for 5 days (group 3), received toltrazuril at 5 mg/kg BW for 2 days (group 4), treated orally with toltrazuril at 2.5 mg/kg BW, two doses with 5 day interval (group 5) and given oral doses of both amprolium and toltrazuril at 50 mg and 5 mg/kg BW (group 6), respectively. Clinical signs, mortalities, production data (feed consumption, feed conversion rate, BW, body weight gain (BWG), and performance index (PI)), OPG of faeces and the percentage of OPG reduction were recorded. The results indicated that both toltrazuril, amprolium and their concurrent use significantly (P<0.05) reduced OPG and effectively controlled coccidiosis related mortality, fully abolished the clinical signs, improved feed consumption, BW, weight gain and feed conversion rate. From the observations of the present study it can be concluded that the oral administration of both drugs and their combined use ameliorated the adverse impacts of intestinal coccidiosis in rabbits as therapeutic, but the concurrent use of both drugs was more superior.