Aim: Mortality in a broiler chicken farm was investigated for identifying the cause of mortality.
Materials and methods: A broiler farm with a population of 16000 succumbed to a disease outbreak. Clinical signs, vaccination history and mortality, were recorded. Necropsy examination and microscopic examination were carried out along with toxicological and molecular studies.
Results: The clinical signs in the affected broiler birds were of non-specific nature with a total mortality of 26.39%. Postmortem examination and microscopical findings revealed hepatitis with basophilic intranuclear inclusion, splenitis, myocarditis, and nephritis. Glomerulonephritis was the prominent renal pathology recorded in this study. Polymerase chain reaction test confirmed the presence of fowl adenovirus (FAdV) genome in the target organs, and toxicological examination by thin-layer chromatography revealed the presence of a toxic level of citrinin in the feed samples.
Conclusion: Based on various diagnostic investigations, the mortality in the flock was attributed to inclusion body hepatitis (IBH) complicated with citrinin mycotoxicosis. Thus, apart from liver pathology which occurs in a classical IBH cases, glomerulonephritis too occurs which are also a prominent finding which pathologists often miss. Thus, kidneys should also be examined histologically to assess the microscopic tissue alterations in poultry suspected for IBH along with a mycotoxicological analysis of feed. This will definitely throw light on the synergistic pathology elicited and exhibited by FAdV and mycotoxins in the poultry.
Keywords: citrinin; fowl adenovirus; glomerulonephritis; inclusion body hepatitis; thin-layer chromatography.