Abstract
There is an increasing interest in developing innovative means to monitor animal health through precision farming. As part of this drive, we have targeted digestive health and in particular the microbiota. In this study, we investigated the effect of different dietary interventions in piglets, feeding these piglets with one of two different feeds (high protein and low protein). We then evaluated its effects by measuring the volatile organic compounds (VOC) that emanated from these faecal samples using various forms of Ion Mobility Spectrometry. Piglets were monitored for 19 days, with faecal samples collected on days 6, 12 and 19, providing a total of 69 samples. The statistical analysis attempted to separate the samples using either dietary intervention or faecal score. First, the faecal score was investigated using a value based on a visual faecal scoring system, from 0 to 3, with 0 being normal and 3 having diarrhoea. Then the VOCs were analysed in regard to dietary intervention (high vs low protein). Results indicated that our approach was able to separate the dietary intervention (area under the curve (AUC) 0.81) using VOC data. Furthermore, we were able to separate samples based on faecal score (AUC between 0.71 and 1, with six different comparisons undertaken). We believe that faeces volatiles hold potential as a future means to monitor animal health.
Highlights
At present, there is a strong drive to develop innovative means to monitor animal health within the livestock sector
Pigs fed with the HP treatment had higher faecal consistency score and frequency of diarrhoea during the trial, in particular after 12 or 19 days of feeding
We investigated volatiles in faecal samples as a means to monitor gastrointestinal health expressed as different grades of diarrhoea
Summary
There is a strong drive to develop innovative means to monitor animal health within the livestock sector. The understanding of biomarkers of gastrointestinal functionality is crucial in deepening our understanding of the complex mechanisms involved in the regulation of the several patho-physiological events that occur within the gastrointestinal tract. This has the potential to aid in livestock management through the monitoring of gastrointestinal functionality. Nutritional imbalances, management practices, environmental challenges and diseases can often result in diarrhoea, especially in young piglets (Jayaraman & Nyachoti, 2017) If this could be detected earlier, farmers would be able to make a rapid intervention, which would result in improved animal health, welfare and production performances (average daily gain, feed efficiency). Current advances have yet to be taken up in a farm setting, potentially due to the various challenges, including the large numbers of animals involved, their short production cycle, and the lack of a specific biomarker that can capture the complexity of the gastrointestinal tract and its functionality (Celi, Verlhac, Perez Calvo, Schmeisser, & Kluenter, 2019)
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