Abstract
Early development is a critical period during which environmental influences can have a significant impact on the health, welfare, robustness and performance of livestock. In oviparous vertebrates, such as birds, embryonic development takes place entirely in the egg. This allows the effects of environmental cues to be studied directly on the developing embryo. Interestingly, beneficial effects have been identified in several studies, leading to innovative procedures to improve the phenotype of the animals in the long term. In this review, we discuss the effects of early temperature and dietary programming strategies that both show promising results, as well as their potential transgenerational effects. The timing, duration and intensity of these procedures are critical to ensure that they produce beneficial effects without affecting animal survival or final product quality. For example, cyclic increases in egg incubation temperature have been shown to improve temperature tolerance and promote muscular growth in chickens or fatty liver production in mule ducks. In ovo feeding has also been successfully used to enhance digestive tract maturation, optimize chick development and growth, and thus obtain higher quality chicks. In addition, changes in the nutritional availability of methyl donors, for example, was shown to influence offspring phenotype. The molecular mechanisms behind early phenotype programming are still under investigation and are probably epigenetic in nature as shown by recent work in chickens.
Highlights
Development is a critical period during which the environment influences the health, welfare, robustness and performance of livestock (Ho et al, 2011; Reed and Clark, 2011)
The purpose of this review is to provide a concise description of the advancement of this concept in four poultry species with a particular interest on two main embryonic programming strategies, nutrition and temperature
To face future challenges, including fluctuations due to climate change and changing farming systems, breeders are under pressure to increase performance and productivity, and to ensure resilience and reduce resource use and environmental impact
Summary
Development is a critical period during which the environment influences the health, welfare, robustness and performance of livestock (Ho et al, 2011; Reed and Clark, 2011). Long-term effects of the early environment, i.e., during embryogenesis or the first days of life, have been demonstrated in cattle (Reynolds and Vonnahme, 2017), sheep (Reynolds et al, 2010), pigs (Feeney et al, 2014), fish (Panserat et al, 2019), and birds (Feeney et al, 2014; Loyau et al, 2015) among others. The oviparous vertebrate model differs from the others due to an embryonic development outside of the dam. The embryo can be manipulated, opening up new opportunities for phenotypic programming to improve poultry production. Embryonic incubation conditions have been studied since the mid-20th century to find optimal incubation parameters for poultry production.
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