Investigation of the bacterial microbiome of drinking water for poultry

Samples of drinking water were collected from poultry houses to examine the drinking water bacterial microbiome and how this changes during the production cycle. Samples were collected for two consecutive production cycles from each six farms during the early, middle and late parts of the cycle. Water samples (1 litre) were transported to the laboratory on ice and filtered through a 0.22µm cellulose acetate filters. These filters were then frozen until DNA was extracted from them using Qiagen Powersoil Pro kit (according to manufacturer's instructions). The v4 region of the 16s rRNA gene was sequenced using an Illumina Miseq (250bp paired end reads).