Effect of different levels of nutrition on experimental bubalian trypanosomosis

Abstract

Buffalo calves (16), male, 8-12 month-old and procured locally were divided into 4 equal groups of which 2 were optimal-fed and the remaining 2 were under-fed to study the effect of different levels of nutrition on experimental bubalin trypanosomosis. The animals of 2 groups, 1 from optimal-fed and other from under-fed, were infected with Trypanosoma evansi, buffalo isolate on day 35 post-feeding with different levels of nutrition. Trypanosomosis was successfully induced in both the groups. The infected buffalo calves of both the groups did not show much difference between the onset of parasitaemia and pyrexia but parasitaemia and mortality were more in under-fed than in optimal-fed. On day 98 postfeeding, the under-fed buffalo calves gained less body weight (46.9%) compared to the optimal-fed, and following T evansi infection live-weight gains further lowered in the fom1cr (37.5%) than in the later (14.2%). The significant (P<0.01) decrease in haemoglobin (g %), packed· cell volume (%) and total erythrocytic counts (million/mml) on day 63 poslinfection (PI) indicated development of anaemia in buffalo calves of both the infected groups. The reduction (%) in haematological indices was higher in under-fed than that in the optimal-fed. Serum glucose (mg %) levels also decreased significantly in the under-fed on day 63 PI. Microelement status revealed significantly lower values of serum iron in T. evansi infected buffalo calves of both the groups and decrease (%) was higher in under-fed (6.1 %) than that in optimal-fed (2.4%). The under-fed buffalo calves also showed 4.81% lower values of serum copper than the optimal-fed. Thus, it is evident that poor nutritional level feeding aggravates the harmful effects of T. evansi infection in buffalo calves.