Efficiency of the injection of trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole solution on game bird embryonated-egg during the late stage of development

Infectious agents cause disease in virtually any susceptible hosts. In the poultry production and medicine, pathogens were eliminated from a line of a breeder by injection of antibiotics into hatching eggs. There is little information available describing the safety of the folate antimetabolite/sulfonamide class of antibiotics on the game birds embryonated eggs. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficiency of the injection of trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole solution on the partridge embryonated egg. Fertile partridge eggs were distributed into 3 groups and set in the incubator. On 18th day post incubation, one group was injected with the trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole injectable solution dissolved in 0.3 ml phosphate buffered saline. Rest two groups were used as sham control (0.3 ml phosphate buffered saline solution) and un-injected control. Macroscopic evaluation on 21th day post incubation showed that embryos were normal in all treatment groups. Microscopically, no lesions were also diagnosed in the brain, heart, muscle, liver, kidney and lung of the embryos. Based on macroscopic and microscopic findings, it is concluded that trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole at above-mentioned concentration is not toxic for the partridge embryo at the late stage of development. So, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole egg-injection can be used to eliminate pathogens and prevention of egg transmission of the disease without any adverse effect.