THE STUDY OF HAEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS IN THE NIGERIAN LOCAL CHICKEN

Abstract

An investigation was conducted to study the haematological parameters of the Nigerian local chicken using a total of 100 local chickens out of which 30 were randomly selected for bleeding. The blood samples were subjected to laboratory analysis to identify their haemoglobin contents, fragility and sedimentation rates as well as red blood cell counts, white blood cell counts and coagulation time. The results indicated that haemoglobin content ranged from 63.82 - 78.,43% with a mean of 70,43%, fragility and sedimentation rates ranged from 0.40 - 0.85% osmotic equivalent, coagulation time from 3.82 -6.25 minutes with a mean of 4.61 minutes, the red blood cell counts from 1.93 - 2.96 (x10°/ul) with a mean of 2.5 (x10°/ul) and white blood cell counts from 962 - 1,868 cells/ul with a mean of 1,216 cells/ul. It is believed that the establishment of the normal blood characteristics of the local chicken as done in this study, can be of immense aid in detecting abnormalities in the blood characteristics which can be used in diagnosing certain blood related diseases.