Occurrence of histomoniasis in free range village chicken

The histomoniasis was diagnosed as a cause of death in two desi village chicken of two month age along with three ailing birds. All these birds were reared in free range system. Clinically, ailing birds showed dullness, in appetence and lethargy. Necropsy of the dead birds showed numerous circular, grey punched out foci ranging from 1–2 cm in diameter in liver and diphtheritic typhlitis. Microscopically, section of liver showed multiple confluent areas of coagulative necrosis with large numbers of individual or clustered eosinophilic rounded up parasites in clear vacuoles with sparse infiltration of lymphocytes, mononuclear cells and heterophils. The liver sections were stained with PAS and Gomori's silver methanamine stain to confirm the parasite.