Donaldson Erin E, Stanley Dragana, Hughes Robert J, Moore Robert J
Institute for Future Farming Systems, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia.
Poultry Cooperative Research Centre, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.
PeerJ. 2017 Jul 20;5:e3587. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3587. eCollection 2017.
The microbial populations that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) are known to influence the health and growth performance of the host. Clean hatcheries and machine-based incubation practices in the commercial poultry industry can lead to the acquisition of aberrant microbiota in the GIT of chickens and a very high level of bird-to-bird variation. The lack of microbial profile flock uniformity presents challenges for harnessing and manipulating intestinal bacteria to better serve the host.
Cecal contents from high or low performing chickens were used to inoculate the surface of eggs prior to hatching and then the initial gut colonisation was monitored and subsequent changes in gut microbiota composition were followed over time. Two different cecal treatment groups were compared to an untreated control group ( = 32). Bacterial communities were characterised using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing techniques.
Cecal microbiota transfer via egg surface application did not transfer the performance profile of the donors to the recipient birds. One of the cecal inoculations provided a more uniform gut microbiota, but this was not reproduced in the second group with a different inoculum. Development of the intestinal community was reproducible in all three groups with some genera like showing no change, others like increased in abundance slowly and steadily over time and others like were abundant only in the first days of life.
The cecal treatment reduced bird-to-bird variation in microbiota composition. Although the high FCR performance of donor birds was not transferred with the cecal microbiota, all three groups, including the control, performed better than standard for the breed. The pattern of microbiota development was similar in all three flocks, indicating that the normal processes of microbiota acquisition largely swamped any effect of the cecal material applied to eggs.
已知栖息在胃肠道（GIT）中的微生物种群会影响宿主的健康和生长性能。商业家禽业中清洁的孵化场和基于机器的孵化方式会导致鸡的胃肠道中获得异常微生物群，且鸡与鸡之间的差异非常大。微生物谱群缺乏一致性给利用和操纵肠道细菌以更好地服务宿主带来了挑战。
在孵化前，用高性能或低性能鸡的盲肠内容物接种鸡蛋表面，然后监测初始肠道定植情况，并随时间跟踪肠道微生物群组成的后续变化。将两个不同的盲肠处理组与一个未处理的对照组（n = 32）进行比较。使用高通量16S rRNA基因测序技术对细菌群落进行表征。
通过鸡蛋表面接种进行盲肠微生物群转移并没有将供体的性能特征转移给受体鸡。其中一次盲肠接种提供了更均匀的肠道微生物群，但在使用不同接种物的第二组中并未重现。在所有三组中，肠道群落的发育都是可重复的，一些属如 没有变化，其他属如 随着时间的推移丰度缓慢而稳定地增加，还有一些属如 仅在生命的最初几天丰富。
盲肠处理减少了鸡与鸡之间微生物群组成的差异。尽管供体鸡的高料肉比性能没有随着盲肠微生物群转移，但包括对照组在内的所有三组的表现均优于该品种的标准。所有三个鸡群中微生物群的发育模式相似，这表明微生物群获得的正常过程在很大程度上掩盖了应用于鸡蛋的盲肠物质的任何影响。
