الفهرس 
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Abstract
Avian coccidiosis is an important parasitic disease affecting poultry and causes high economic losses in poultry industry, which act as important sector in the Egyptian national income. It is caused by genus Eimeria that belongs to subphylum apicomplexa. It affecting domestic pigeons causing great losses especially in squabs. So, this study was conducted at the period between October 2017 to September 2018 to investigate the prevalence of Eimeria species infecting domestic pigeons (Columbia livia) in Minia province. Therefore, intestines of 425 domestic pigeons collected from various poultry butcher shops as well as 113 pooled fecal samples of household pigeons were microscopically examined by flotation technique. The recovered oocysts were morphologically identified. The overall prevalence of Eimeria species infection was 26.588% (113/425) and 74.336%% (84/113) in the intestinal and pooled fecal samples respectively. Seasonally, the infection rate revealed from the intestinal samples was the highest in winter (30.158%) and the lowest in autumn (15.09%). Meanwhile, the highest infection rate in the pooled fecal samples was in both spring and autumn (76.19% and 80.85%) respectively, while the lowest was in summer (65.38%). Moreover, the monthly infection rate of intestinal samples revealed that September and April had the highest rates; (53.33% and 39.63%). However, no infection rates were found in October and November, while monthly infection rate of fecal samples recorded that January and February showed 100% infection rate. Meanwhile, March and August, showed the lowest rate of infection 25.0% and 42.257% respectively. The morphological identification revealed the presence of four Eimeria species, E. labbeana, E. columbarum E.columbae and E. labbeana-like, in pigeons in Minia province. Further studies are recommended to investigate the life cycle and molecular differentiation of Eimeria species infecting domestic birds.
The results of biological study showed that theoocysts shedding started from 5th day post infection (PI), peak of shedding at the 8th day PI and pre-patent period take 5 days. Three schizonts generations were recorded.
Investigation of thymol efficacy to control pigeon coccidiosis was performed using in-vitro and in-vivo
studies. The in-vitro experiment was done by treatment of unsporulated oocysts of Eimeria species of pigeons by five concentrations (0.625 to 10%) from either thymol, eucalyptus essential oil or amprolium anticoccidial drugand incubation for 72h.The in-vitro study revealed that thymol concentrations ≥ 1.25% caused significant deformity on sporulated and unsporulated oocysts compared to the other two products. Eucalyptus oil was active at both 5 and 10% concentrations on unsporulated oocyst but showed non-significant changeson sporulated ones at all tested concentration. Meanwhile, In-vivo testing of thymol was conducted using 45 squabs which were equally divided into three groups; negative control untreated uninfected (UU), positive control infected untreated (UI) and thymol treated (TT). TT group was receiving thymol in food for 10 days. At day five post thymol supplementation, the UI and TT groups were orally infected by 25x103 sporulated oocysts of pigeons Eimeria species (E. labbeana, E. columbae, E. columbarum and E. labbeana-like). The in-vivo study showed that thymol minimized the adverse effect of Eimeria infection in pigeons declared by less severity of clinical signs, low oocysts count and improvement of body weight when compared with untreated infected birds. In addition, the biochemical parameters including liver and kidney functions tests proved its safety in pigeons. Moreover, thymol showed good antioxidant activity that was estimated by significantly lower value of malondialdehydein TT than UI groups. In conclusion, thymol can be safely used in management of coccidiosis in pigeonas anatural alternative.