Occurrence: Worldwide.
Species affected: Broilers
Age affected: 2-6 weeks
Causes: Unknown enteric viruses. Spread by vertical or horizontal routes and faecal contamination.
Effects: Incubation period is 7-14 days. Stunting, higher early mortality, and passage of undigested food in faeces can also occur.
Cystic enteritis (runting syndrome)
There are a number of enteric disease conditions affecting young poultry that go undiagnosed with respect to identifying a definite aetiological agent. Thus a group of diseases of this nature have been termed “viral enteritis” but diseases with similar signs have been reported from many different countries under many different names.
Several viruses have either been observed or isolated from the intestinal tract of chickens experiencing this disease. Caliciviruses, reoviruses, coronaviruses, astroviruses, and parvoviruses have been identified so far. However, astroviruses have been most consistently isolated from birds with this disease.