a pathological study of cryptosporidiosis in native turkeys of lran

objective:to show occurrence of cryptosporidiosis in native turkeys of lran by means of histopathological and parasitological methods. design:descriptive study.animals:fifty native turkey poults suffered from growth retardation,long standing diarrhea or both were obtained from native turkey raising areas of iran (northern and western provinces) procedure:the clinical signs and symptoms of poults were recorded and fecal samples were taken and stained with modified zeih1-neelsen method. poults were sacrified and necropsied tissue samples collected from different parts of small and large intestine and processed for histopathological examination. statistical analysis: kappa & mcnemar test. results: histopathological studies revealed that 13 out of 50 cases were infected with cryptosporidium spp.' histopathologic changes were seen as of hyperplasia of epithelial cells, hypertrophy of crypts , atrophy , fusion and shortness of the villi and increase in the number of leukocytes in the lamina propria' furthermore, 5 out of 13 cases were positive for cryptosporidium organisms in fecal smears in stainig with modified zeih1-neelsen method.the results of fecal examination and histopathological study was not correlated. clinicat implications: since the cryptosporidium is pathogenic to turkeys the infection is hazardous not only for native turkey husbandary but also for infected turkeys. this conditin could be a source of infection for industrial poultry production. furthermore, the best cryptosporidial diagnostic method is histopathologic examination.