Abstract
Gut microbiota and its relationship to animal health and productivity in commercial broiler chickens has been difficult to establish due to high variability between flocks, which derives from plenty of environmental, nutritional, and host factors that influence the load of commensal and pathogenic microbes surrounding birds during their growth cycle in the farms. Chicken gut microbiota plays a key role in the maintenance of intestinal health through its ability to modulate host physiological functions required to maintain intestinal homeostasis, mainly through competitive exclusion of detrimental microorganisms and pathogens, preventing colonization and therefore decreasing the expense of energy that birds normally invest in keeping the immune system active against these pathogens. Therefore, a “healthy” intestinal microbiota implies energy saving for the host which translates into an improvement in productive performance of the birds. This review compiles information about the main factors that shape the process of gut microbiota acquisition and maturation, their interactions with chicken immune homeostasis, and the outcome of these interactions on intestinal health and productivity.
Highlights
The demand for poultry products has grown exponentially in recent decades and it is estimated that production will reach 130 million tons of chicken meat in 2020, when it will become the most consumed animal meat in the world [1]
Our results showed that seasonal changes in litter microbiota correlates with seasonal changes in flock productivity, which is better in winter and worsens in summer in conjunction with an increase in species richness, and the same patterns is observed in cecal samples [34]
The productivity of poultry can be measured through different parameters including feed conversion ratio (FCR), residual feed intake (RFI), body weight gain (BWG), apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and time to achieve market weight [3]
Summary
The demand for poultry products has grown exponentially in recent decades and it is estimated that production will reach 130 million tons of chicken meat in 2020, when it will become the most consumed animal meat in the world [1]. The maintenance of a high feed efficiency plays an essential role in the capacity of the poultry sector to meet the growing demand for poultry products, and it represents a major challenge, since the intensive production of birds is very prone to be affected by outbreaks of infectious diseases, in geographical areas where climatic conditions are changing. Microorganisms 2019, 7, 374 interaction with the physiological functions of the host has been collected, with focus on the impact of these interactions intestinal health and performance of theinteractions birds. Functions of the hoston has been collected, withproductive focus on the impact of these on intestinal health and productive performance of the birds
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