chicken gut metagenome Metagenome. chicken gut metagenome

Chickens of good and poor feed efficiency differ in their feed intake and gut microbiota composition. However, the cause and effect relationship between FE-associated microbiota and chicken’s FL is not clear. In the present study, we investigated the effect of FL on host FE, nutrient retention at 4 weeks of age, and the fecal microbiota at 16 and 29 days post-hatch in broiler chickens divergent in residual feed intake (RFI; a metric for FE). The RFI was determined for the experimental period between 9 and 30 days. At day 30 posthatch, chickens with extreme RFI values (low RFI = good feed efficiency; high RFI = poor feed efficiency) were selected, and only the microbiota composition in excreta at 16 and 29 dph was assessed using paired-end sequencing of the V3-5 region of the 16S rRNA gene using the Illumina MiSeq platform.