Clinical signs in Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix) experimentally infected with Salmonella Gallinarum

Resumen

Fowl typhoid a high-impact disease in the poultry industry, this study aims to verify the clinical signs of the disease in experimentally inoculated with quail Salmonella Gallinarum 54 Japanese female quails were distributed into two groups. The inoculated group (GI) SG (32 quail) and control group (CG) (16 birds). A total of six birds were euthanized before the start of the experiment, organs samples (liver, spleen, ovarian follicles, cecum and lung) were collected for the microbiological analysis. The birds of the GI group received 0,7mL of inoculum (1.5x106 CFU/mL) and birds of the CG group received 0,7 mL of saline solution. Thereafter, the quails were observed for ten consecutive days in three daily periods (8:00, 11:00 e 14:00) in order to observe clinical signs of disease. After four days of inoculation was verified prostration, apathy, ruffled feathers, diarrhea, bird's stay in the corner of the cage with closed eyes and reluctance to move (13/32). Some macroscopic changes were observed in euthanized birds with clinical signs like splenomegaly and splenic necrosis in 84,6% (11/13) and 23,0% (3/13) respectively, hepatomegaly and liver necrosis in 15,4% (2/13) e 23% (3/13) respectively, and atrophy and hemorrhage of ovarian follicles in 15,4% (2/13) and 7,7% (1/13) respectively. the birds that died was observed only hepatosplenomegaly. So we can conclude experimentally inoculated with Salmonella Gallinarum quail have the typical clinical signs of fowl typhoid observed in others birds of Galliforme order.