Gastrointestinal (GI) parasite infection has a direct effect on the health and production potential of working equines, which contributes to the reduction in their work output and, ultimately, in the income of the owner and the community (14). In this study, the overall estimated prevalence of strongyles in horses and donkeys was 56.6% (206/364) in and around bishoftu town on the basis of Coprological microscopic examination results. The current study finding closely agreed with previous reports of (15), who reported 47.4% in horse and donkeys in and around Kombolcha town, Ethiopia.
On the other hand, the current finding was found to be lower as compared to the reports of (16), who reported a prevalence of 64.61%, 100%, 99%, and 100% for Menz Keya Gerbil District, East Shewa, and Adaa and Akaki of East Shewa, respectively. The prevalence of strongle parasite was 27.2%, 22.5% and 6.9% in poor, medium and good body condition scores.
The lower prevalence in the horses in the present study could be due to all horses of this study were cart horses that are less exposed and in some cases totally restricted from pasture. High prevalence in donkeys might be due to the differences in feeding and deworming activities. All most all of the horses under this study were cart horses that fed grain by products and are less exposed to pasture grazing. In addition horses are dewormed regularly and the higher prevalence in donkey was may be because of their low economic value and the poor conditions of housing and management and lack of deworming practices. Furthermore, the difference in prevalence in different area might be due to the difference in sampling area, feeding system and accessibility to deworming and health services (17).
The current finding supported with the reports of Ma and wubit (2016), who reported the prevalence of strongyle infections to be 44.55% in donkeys and 48.2% in horses. However, the current finding revealed a higher prevalence at species level than (18), who reported 5.82% in donkeys and 4.92% in horses in and around Dangila. On the other hand, the current study result was agued the reports (19) from East Shewa-Adaa that revealed 100% and 99% in donkeys and in horses (20), who reported a higher prevalence of 99.15% in Sudan. Moreover, the current result was lower than those reported by Tolla et al. (2013) in and around Gondar, Ethiopia and around Hawassa town, (17) in South Wollo zone (87.81%, 76%, 70.8% in donkeys and 66.67%, 64.9%, 58.5% in horses, respectively).
Furthermore, this finding agreed with the previous reports by (5, 19) who reported a statistically significant association between the existence of strongyle infection with the body condition score of equines. In the current study, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of the strongylus parasite in the equines that originated from different origins (kebeles) of the study area. This is similar with the finding of (20). This condition could be due to the similarity in the agro-ecology of the study areas, epidemiology of the parasites and the management systems used for the equines species.
In this study even though there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) between the prevalence of the parasites between the young and adult, the highest prevalence of those strongylus parasite infestation was seen in the adult (53%) than the young (3.6%) equines. This finding agrees with the work of (21). For this; the probable reason may be due to waning body conditions and immunity. Compared to the young equines, the immunity of the old equines is low as they are frequently exposed to strongylus parasite, extensive work overload and undernourished conditions (22).