Abstract
Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrate dietary supplements that selectively stimulate the growth of one or more beneficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of the host. These bacteria can inhibit colonization of pathogenic bacteria by producing antimicrobial substances such as short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and competing for niches with pathogens within the gut. Pasture flock chickens are generally raised outdoors with fresh grass, sunlight and air, which represents different environmental growth conditions compared to conventionally raised chickens. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the difference in microbial populations from naked neck chicken ceca fed with commercial prebiotics derived from brewer’s yeast cell wall via an Illumina MiSeq platform. A total of 147 day-of-hatch naked neck chickens were distributed into 3 groups consisted of 1) C: control (no prebiotic), 2) T1: Biolex® MB40 with 0.2%, and 3) T2: Leiber® ExCel with 0.2%, consistently supplemented prebiotics during the experimental period. At 8 weeks, a total of 15 birds from each group were randomly selected and ceca removed for DNA extraction. The Illumina Miseq platform based on V4 region of 16S rRNA gene was applied for microbiome analysis. Both treatments exhibited limited impact on the microbial populations at the phylum level, with no significant differences in the OTU number of Bacteroidetes among groups and an increase of Proteobacteria OTUs for the T1 (Biolex® MB40) group. In addition there was a significant increase of genus Faecalibacterium OTU, phylum Firmicutes. According to the development of next generation sequencing (NGS), microbiome analysis based on 16S rRNA gene proved to be informative on the prebiotic impact on poultry gut microbiota in pasture-raised naked neck birds.
Highlights
The differences in broiler chicken growth systems between conventional environmentally controlled housing and on pasture include rearing environments, feed components and what are considered acceptable dietary additives
The chicken ceca, as a fermentation chamber, play important roles such as polysaccharide digestion, water adsorption and urea recycling and have the greatest gastrointestinal microbial populations that include an abundance of phylogenetic groups such as Clostridiales and Bacteroidetes [31, 32]
Sergeant et al [26] reported that chicken ceca possess approximately 700 bacterial species based on 16S rRNA amplicon pyrosequencing
Summary
The differences in broiler chicken growth systems between conventional environmentally controlled housing and on pasture include rearing environments, feed components and what are considered acceptable dietary additives. Slow-growing broiler breeds such as naked neck chicken, require a longer growth period (as much as 12 weeks) compared to fast-growing one (7 weeks), slow-growing broiler do yield a better gait score, improved livability and nutritional differences in meat quality [4, 5]. Issues such as occurrence of foodborne pathogens and diminished health status can be a chronic problem in some of the nonconventional systems [6]. Functional feed additives such as prebiotics have been examined in the past several decades as potential dietary additives to limit pathogenic bacteria establishment in humans and improve gut health in poultry and other food animals [7,8,9,10]
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