Occurrence of necrotic enteritis in commercial layer chickens raised in cages

Necropsy of nine, 22-week old commercial layer chickens from a flock of 15,000 birds raised in cages with history of increased mortality revealed pale, distended intestine with brown fibrino-diphtheritic membrane on mucosal surface. Generalized congestion was observed in visceral organs along with breast muscles. Histologically, intestine showed diffuse coagulative necrosis of mucosa reaching deep up to muscularis along with numerous bacterial colonies and different stages of coccidia. The birds treated with chlortetracycline, colistin sulphate and BMD in feed for one month showed excellent results.