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Table 3 Descriptive statistics for worm burdens, faecal egg counts and plasma antibody concentrations of field chickensa naturally infected with gastrointestinal nematodes

From: A comprehensive evaluation of an ELISA for the diagnosis of the two most common ascarids in chickens using plasma or egg yolks

Item

Mean

SE

Min

Max

Prevalence (%)b

H. gallinarum (n/bird)

192

40.9

3

1408

100

A. galli (n/bird)

36

6.0

1

126

100

Capillaria spp. (n/bird)

13

2.2

0

52

86

Total worm burden (n/bird)c

240

41.8

17

1451

100

EPG

279

60.0

0

1278

55

Plasma antibody (mU/ml)

120

9.1

30.6

236.6

90

  1. aThe chickens (n = 40) were brown laying hens of two closely related genotypes, kept on an organic farm and necropsied in the end of laying period at an age of  ≥ 79 weeks
  2. bPercentage of chickens infected with each or any nematode species. For EPG it indicates percentage of chickens with EPG positive samples (e.g. EPG ≥ 50). For plasma antibody it indicates percentage of animals correctly classified as infected using the cut-off (> 52.9 mU/ml)
  3. cCalculated as the sum of all worms from three nematode species. For calculation of prevalence, the existence of at least one species was considered to be positive
  4. Abbreviations: Min minimum, Max maximum, SE standard error