Prevalence and hematological indices of pigs naturally infested with mange in a Nigerian university farm.

Abstract

Prevalence and hematological studies of pigs naturally infested with mange in the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria piggery farm was investigated. Out of 66 pigs in the farm, 33(50%) of them were of Large White breed, 28(42.4%) Indigenous and 5(7.6%) crossbred respectively. Of these breeds of pigs, mange infestation was exclusively observed in the Local breed, where only the younger ones (weaners and growers) were affected. Among the younger Local breed of pigs, 2(66.7%) of the weaners and 10(76.9%) of the growers were infested with mange. In addition, 8(50%) of these local pigs infested with mange were males, while 4(25%) of them were females. The mean hematological values of the mange infested pigs were within the normal ranges. However, the mean eosinophil value for the mange infested pigs was 4.0±2.52, which was higher than the maximum value in the normal range. Although within the normal documented ranges, mean hematological values of the infested pigs such as PCV (44.7±0.67), Hb (13.7±0.20), MCV (66.7±3.36), MCH (20.6±1.16), WBC (16.9±6.18) and Monocytes (2.0±1.0) were slightly higher than those of mange free pigs.


Keywords: Hematology, pigs, mange, farm, University, Nigeria

IJOTAFS Vol. 1 (1) 2007: pp. 37-41