Abstract: To understand the prevalence and infection speices of coccidia, a total of 1052 sheep from Henan, Shandong and Northeast China were investigated by using the Sheather’s sugar flotation method. The average infection rate of coccidia was 94.8%. Coccidium oocysts contained in 968 positive samples were conducted morphological identification, and 12 species of Eimeria were detected, including E.ahsata, E.bakuensis, E.parva, E.gonzalezi, E.ovinoidalis, E.granulosa, E.pallida, E.marsica, E.weybridgensis, E.intricata, E.crandallis and E.faurei. The infection rate of mixed species were 71.8% and 2 to 5 mixed species were the most common, however, the maximum number of mixed species reached to 9. The infection rate was 99.4% and 86.0% in less than one-year-old sheep and more than one-year-old sheep, respectively. The average number of oocyst per gramme feces (OPG) was 7907.36 and 3263.89 in the two age groups, respectively. The infection rate of coccidia was 97.0% and 89.0% in drylot feeding sheep and grazing sheep, respectively. Summer and autumn were the two major seasons for coccidia prevalence in sheep.

Key words: coccidia; sheep; infection rate; species investigation