effect of administration of echinacea on performance and oocyst shedding in experimental coccidiosis caused by eimeria tenella

the poultry industry has been outbreak with an intricate problem called coccidiosis from the beginning and undoubted coccidiosis is one of the most widespread poultry diseases especially among breeder herds and ancestor. so the interest in alternative methods for the control of coccidiosis has been dramatically increased in recent years, and it is necessary to look for methods which are adaptable, safer and cheaper than chemicals. in this study for the first time in iran effect of anticoccidial effects of powder of echinacea on experimental coccidiosis caused by e.tenella was carried out. in this study, to evaluate the effects of echinacea’s powder on fecal oocyst shedding and body weight gain of coccidi-infected broiler chickens, 120 one day old ross 308 broiler chicks were randomly assigned to six treatments. each treatment contained 20 chickens. treatments 1 and 3 were fed diets supplemented with 0.1% of echinacea and treatments 2 and 4 were fed diets supplemented with 0.5%. groups 1, 2 three weeks and 3, 4 six weeks were feed with diet supplemented with echinacea and treatments 5 and 6 were designated as positive and negative control, received no echinacea. chickens in treatment 1, 2 and 3, 4 were inoculated with a suspension containing 200 micro liter of eimeria tenella orally.  frequency of excreted oocyst obtained from feces samples during 7-13 days post -challenged was carried out. body weight, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio were evaluated on days 7, 14, 21 and 42. the results revealed that echinacea decreased oocyst per gram of feces significantly in 7-13 days post inoculation and improved production performance in coccidian infected broiler chicks.