One of infectious disease that affects poultry is coccidiosis, which is caused by parasitic protozoans of the genus Eimeria, also known as coccidians. A cross sectional was conducted to determine the prevalence of coccidiosis and its associated risk factor in Bishoftu town from November 2017 to April 2018. The random sampling method was used to gather a total of 422 faecal samples from poultry in both backyard and intensive poultry farms. To detect the presence of coccidian oocyst floatation technique was used. Among the total of 422 poultries sampled, 99 were positive for coccidian oocyst with the overall prevalence of 23.5%. Statistical analysis revealed that the distribution of coccidiosis in chickens was highly significant (P<0.05) between age groups, management system, breed and body condition. In present study, the poultry which are managed under backyard (extensive) farming systems were more affected than intensive farm system with prevalence of 29.4% and17.5%, respectively. In chicken categorized as being younger than 8 weeks (young) and older than 8 weeks (adult), the prevalence was found to be 27.4% and 18.8%, respectively. In this study, the local breed (28.4%) had a higher evaluation for Eimeria oocyst up on microscopic examination than the exotic breed (19.4%). The prevalence of 29.5% in poor and 20.7% good body condition were also recorded. Furthermore, Coccidiosis occurrences in female and male chickens were 24.2%and 21.3%, respectively with statistically not significant (P>0.05). In conclusion, the current study shows that coccidiosis is one of the important diseases in backyard management system and young stock chickens and also display it is an economically important disease under poor and low-input based husbandry practices. Therefore, raising awareness among local chicken producers through education on the prevalence of coccidiosis and lowering stressors such overcrowding in intensive farms should serve as a signal for intervention to combat the disease without giving precedence to risk factors.

Keywords: Bishoftu, Ccoccidosis, Eimeria, Oocyst, Poultry, Prevalence