Comparative impact of chicken and beef feeding on gastro-intestinal parasites in captive Indian leopards (Panthera pardus fusca) Bangar Nikhil S.1,*, Arun A. Sha2 1Wildlife Veterinary Officer, Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Center Wildlife SOS, Junnar, Pune - 410502 (Maharashtra) 2Director-Research and Veterinary Operations (Wildlife SOS), Bannerghatta Bear Rescue Centre, Bannerghatta, Karnataka *Corresponding author. E-mail: nikhil@wildlifesos.org
Online Published on 23 January, 2023. Abstract An observational study was conducted from August, 2010 to August 2020 in two phases. A total of 532 fecal samples (266 from phase 1 and 266 from phase 2) were collected from captive leopards to assess the impact of feeding on gastrointestinal parasites provided with different feeding patterns on these two phases. During the study period of phase 1, their diet mainly consisted of only beef meat with one day off in a week and phase II was fed only on chicken meat with two days off in a week. The prevalence of parasitic infection in phase 1 was 29.69% (79/266) and that of phase II was 8.65% (23/266), with an overall prevalence of 19.17% (102/532). Results indicated that in both phases of study, leopards were mostly infected by nematodes preferably Toxocara spp. The leopards suffered from less types of parasites when was fed on chicken meat than beef meat. Top Keywords Beef meat, Chicken meat, Feeding, Gastrointestinal parasites, Leopard. Top |