Dr. Vikas GalavBharti Meena2022-05-122022-05-122020https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810184622Chicken plays an important role in the socio – economic life of India. It is a rich source of high-quality food such as eggs and meat as well as a source of income and employment to the millions of rural farmers. Rajasthan state has around 80.24 lacs (0.7% of the total chicken populations of India) of poultry. The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) performs important functions of digestion, assimilation and absorption of food. Any abnormality in the functioning of GIT leads to a disturbance with absorption and assimilation of nutrients resulting in a decrease in growth, decrease in feed conversion ratio (FCR) and production losses, thereby severely affecting the health status of chicken farming. The chicken’s digestive system and gut conditions are responsible for digestion and absorption. The health of the chicken and the nutrients consumed affect the pH level in the digestive system and influence the growth of microbes. The pathological study of the gastrointestinal tract is very important as the digestive system bear a major segment of the total burden of diseases and considers as the most important cause of illness and death in many poultry birds. Gastrointestinal tract disorder in poultry results in poor production of the involved bird, so preservation of the health of these birds are the basic requirement for conserving their productive output. Multiple studies conclude poultry to suffer from digestive diseases significantly. Histopathological studies of various pathological conditions involved in gastrointestinal tract diseases are very essential as these affect the health and productivity of poultry. In this present investigation, a total number of 970 samples of chicken suspected for abnormalities were examined irrespective of age, sex and breed. Out of these 970 samples, 651 samples of gastrointestinal tract suspected for abnormalities were further processed for histopathological examination. The overall occurrence of various pathological conditions in the gastrointestinal tract of chickens were observed and classified. Various forms of gastrointestinal tract affections were classified as congestion of intestine (20%) which was found to be the highest followed by that of acute catarrhal enteritis (15.4%), congestion in gizzard (6.6%), crop congestion (6.2%), chronic catarrhal enteritis (5.8%), hemorrhage in intestine (5.5%), hamorrhagic enteritis (4.93%), congestion in proventriculus (3.8%), necrotic enteritis (3.8%), erosive ventriculitis (3.54%), foreign bodies in gizzard (3.33%), congestion in oesophagus (3.1%), crop ingluvitis (2.5%), coccidiosis (2.5%), hemorrhage in proventriculus (2.3%), foreign bodies in crop (2.2%), impaction in gizzard (2.01%), oesophagitis (1.08%), fibrosis in tongue (0.46%), crop impaction (0.9%), ulcerative proventriculitis (0.9%), proventriculus impaction (0.9%), hemorhage in caecum (0.9%), congestion in tongue (0.15%), caecal coccidiosis (0.6%), typhlitis (0.6%).EnglishThesis