Patho-morphological changes in experimentally induced cadmium chloride toxicity in broiler chicks

The present study was carried out to evaluate the pathomorphological changes in various organs of broiler chicks administered with cadmium chloride @250, 500 and 1000 ppm, respectively in drinking water in groups II, III and IV for 6 weeks while group I birds were served as control. Six randomly selected birds from each group were sacrificed at 14, 28 and 42 days post exposure. The lesions were characterized by degeneration, necrosis, cellular and vascularchanges. The main target organs affected were kidney, liver, heart, bursa of Fabricious and brain. The overall lesions in this study suggests that cadmium is hepatotoxic as well as nephrotoxic. The intensity and distribution of such lesions were found more severe in birds of group IV followed by group III and II birds in dose and duration dependent manner while control group birds revealed normal appearance of these organs at all intervals.