Bovine Coccidiosis

A Review of the Problem and Projected New Solution

Abstract

Bovine coccidiosis may be found worldwide and is primarily a disease of young animals three weeks to six months of age; however, there are increasing reports of severe coccidiosis in older cattle as well. Once the clinical signs of coccidiosis are present it is too late to recover the economic losses caused by parasite pathology. It is interesting to note the economic relevance of bovine coccidiosis as estimated for 1971 by Fitzgerald at which time he placed a 47 million dollar price tag on this disease condition in the United States alone; further extrapolation yielded losses of 472 million worldwide (4 ). If additional data on feed conversion and growth similar to Fitzgerald's study were available, the actual losses in dollars might be considerably higher. Management practices appear to have little influence on the epidemiology of the disease, thus, chemoprophylactic and chemotherapeutic control are indicated.