Comparative study of the effect of different antimicrobial groups on chick blood leukogram

Diseases of bacterial etiology are a serious problem hindering the development of the poultry industry, causing serious economic damage to it.Herein we present the results of studies of the effect that drugs of different antimicrobial groups (ditrim and furazolidone) have on leukogram of Hisex Brown chicks. We studied blood values in 3 groups, group I received pure drinking water, group II received ditrim via drinking water at a concentration of 200 mg/L 10 consecutive days, whereas group III received furazolidone in the same manner. Blood samples were collected at Day 1, Day 3, Day 5, Day 7 and Day 9 after the drug withdrawal. We performed leukocyte count in chick blood in each group, then in blood smears we calculated the number of eosinophils, basophils, pseudoeosinophils, lymphocytes and monocytes. We also calculated percentages of separate white blood cell types in order to perform the white blood cell differential. We discovered that administration of furazolidone via drinking water causes a long-term decrease in leukocyte number while such decrease was not observed following administration of ditrim. Leukopenia was observed in chicks of group III at Day 1, Day 5 and Day 7, their values differing from the control values by 26%, 12% and 25% respectively. Besides the administration of furazolidone via drinking water caused changes in leukogram, manifesting in prolonged dynamics of pseudoeosinophil number and lymphocyte number, and also in transitory change in eosinophil number. We did not observe such effect on blood values following the administration of ditrim to the chicks of Group II, except for transitory eosinopenia at Day 9 of our experiment