Prevalence of Sarcocystis in Slaughter Goats in Khoy City by Microscopic Method and Comparison with Slaughterhouse Statistics

Sarcocystis is a mandatory intracellular parasitic protozoan that may cause digestive disorders in goats and huge financial losses in the livestock industry. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of sarcocystis infection in slaughtered goats in Khoy slaughterhouse, Iran using microscopic method and compare it with macroscopic method. To this end, the carcasses of 202 slaughtered goats was examined ocularly and then microscopically for the presence of macrocysts. According to the results, 1.96% of the studied goats were found to be infected with macrocysts. In microscopic examination, 22.55% of the studied goats were found to be positive for infection. Data analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the rate of infection in different age groups and the rate of infection increased with age (P <0.05);while the rate of infection was gender independent and there was no significant difference between the rates of infection of different sexes (P> 0.05). Moreover, there was a statistically significant difference between the amount of infection in different muscles (p <0.05). The highest microcysts were observed in skeletal muscles with 84.78% and the lowest microcysts in heart muscles with 28.26%. This study showed that the microscopic method has a great advantage in determining the rate of sarcocyst infection compared to the ocular method. Therefore, it is necessary to be more careful in determining sarcocyst infections in carcasses of slaughtered goats.