Prevalence and antimicrobial sensitivity of Escherichia coli and Salmonella species in field cases of rabbit intestinal coccidiosis treated with prebiotic

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of prebiotic treatment on E. coli and Salmonella species during natural intestinal coccidiosis in rabbits. The experiment was conducted on 45 selected farm rabbits of which 15 were coccidian free (Negative control; NC, group) and 30 were naturally coccidian infected. The infected animals were allocated into two equal groups including positive control (PC) and prebiotic treated (PT) that were orally treated with prebiotic for 8 successive days. Fecal oocyst count was assessed daily during the course of treatment. Meanwhile, the PC group had a significantly high oocyst count (21.67×103 ± 0.82 OPG), with a significant increase in the prevalence of E. coli and Salmonella (86.7 % and 46.7 %, respectively). Moreover, the NC group remained coccidian free and exhibited E. coli infection only with no detection of salmonella isolates. Findings of in-vitro susceptibility testing showed that E. coli isolates were highly resistant to most of the tested antimicrobials while Salmonella isolates showed variable degrees of resistance. In conclusion, the prebiotic treatment significantly reduced the prevalence of E. coli and Salmonella infections coexisted with intestinal coccidiosis in naturally infected rabbits.