Determination of bacterial abundance and communities in the nipple drinking system of cascading cage layer houses

Yi Wan,Kai Zhan,Ruiyu Ma,Junying Li,Rongbin Yang,Qiang Du,Wei Liu,Lilong Chai,Renrong Qi,Yan Li

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-98330-z

Yi Wan, Kai Zhan + Show 8 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98330-z

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Abstract

Water quality is critical for egg production and animal health in commercial layer housing systems. To investigate microbial contamination in nipple drinking system in layer houses, the bacterial abundance and communities in water pipes and V-troughs on different tiers (e.g., 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th tiers) of a layer house with 8 overlapping cage tiers were determined using qRT-PCR and 16S rRNA sequencing. The water bacterial abundance (i.e., genome 16S rDNA copy number, WBCN) in water pipes and V-troughs did not significantly differ among tiers, but they were 46.77 to 1905.46 times higher in V-troughs than that in water pipes (P < 0.05) for each tier. Illumina sequencing obtained 1,746,303 effective reads from 24 water samples in V-troughs of 4 tiers (six samples from each tier). Taxonomic analysis indicated that the 1st and 5th tiers were predominated by Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, while the 3rd and 7th tiers were predominated by Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. The top four genera were Acinetobacter, Streptococcus, Rothia and Comamonas among measured tiers. The high bacterial abundance and bacterial OTUs of water in the V-troughs reflect poor water quality, which may adversely affect growth and health of laying hens. Therefore, it is suggested that water quality in the V-tough should be checked more frequently in commercial layer houses.

Highlights

Water quality is critical for egg production and animal health in commercial layer housing systems
If not properly disinfected or cleaned, water in open-type V-troughs may accelerate the reproduction of bacteria such as Escherichia coli[7], Salmonella[8], and Staphylococcus[9] due to long-term exposure to microbial aerosols indoor environment, water dripping from nipple drinkers, food scraps from chickens, and dust a ccumulation[10]
There were no significant differences in the water bacterial abundance among different tiers in both the water pipe and the V-trough during different periods (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Water quality is critical for egg production and animal health in commercial layer housing systems. A range of water quality improvement products have been tested and added to disinfect drinking water in layer houses, such as o xidizers[4], acids or oxidizers combined with organic a cids[5], and slightly acidic electrolysed w ater[6]. During disinfection with those disinfectants, water in the pipes need to be back-flushed for a period of time to maintain the cleaning efficiency. Ratio of the mean WBCN in the pipe water and the mean WBCN in the V-trough water

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