Controlled intestinal microbiota colonisation in broilers under the industrial production system

Immediately post hatch, young chicks are exposed to microbes in the air, feed and environment, and rapid colonisation of the gut begins. In environments loaded with pathogens, this process is critical with lifelong implications for the birds. Here we present the large scale commercial hatchery based experiment using the hen in the bag approach similar to faecal transfer in humans, where the highly diverse product, based on chicken caecal microbiota, was administered via automated spray equipment to the birds immediately post-hatch to mimic maternal inoculation. We report highly significant alterations in gut microbiota across upper and lower gut sections, changes in diversity in the caecum and jejunal mucosa, high resemblance of the inoculum microbial community to the caecal microbiota of the birds and consistently higher weight of treated animals.

孵化后即刻，雏鸡便会暴露于空气、饲料与环境中的微生物，肠道菌群（gut microbiota）的快速定植过程随即启动。在病原体富集的养殖环境中，这一过程对雏鸡的终生健康具有关键影响。本研究开展了一项基于大规模商业孵化场的实验，采用与人类粪便菌群移植（faecal transfer）相似的“袋式母鸡法（hen in the bag）”，以鸡盲肠菌群（caecal microbiota）为基础制备高多样性制剂，通过自动化喷雾设备在雏鸡孵化后即刻对其接种，以此模拟母源菌群定植过程。研究结果显示，雏鸡上下肠道区段的肠道菌群均发生极显著改变，盲肠与空肠黏膜（jejunal mucosa）的菌群多样性出现显著变化；接种制剂的微生物群落与雏鸡盲肠菌群高度相似，且受试雏鸡的体重始终显著更高。