Epidemiology of cestode parasites in domestic fowl (gallus gallus domesticus) of kashmir valley with annual, seasonal, sex based, and weight based prevalence

For epidemiological studies of cestode parasites in domestic fowl hosts were collected from six sites from north and south zone of kashmir valley for the period of 24 months from March 2012 to Feb. 2014 for estimation of mean parasitic load, mean prevalence of Cestodes along with seasonal variation, variation with weight, and variation with sex. During the study 576 hosts were examined for cestode parasites and prevalence rate was found to be 61.63% (355/576) with mean intensity load of 43.46 per infected host. The species found were R.tetragona (38.27%), R.cesticellus (20.82%), R.echinobothrida (28.07%), C.infundibulum (15.12%), A.cuneata (9.27%), D.proglottina (10.4%). The highest prevalence was found to be in summer (74.30%) followed by autumn (70.13%) followed by spring (54.86%) followed by winter (47.22%). Prevalence rate was found to be higher in females (69.09%) than in males (53.81%). Infection was found more in growers (77.44%) then in adults (43.77%).