Effects of dietary glycerol monobutyrin on cecal microbiota of laying hens by 16s rDNA sequencing

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of dietary supplementation with glycerol monobutyrate (GMB) on gut microflora at the late stage of laying hens. Total of 252 healthy Dawu Golden Phoenix laying hens with no difference in body weight were selected and randomly divided into two groups: 1) control group (CG), corn-soybean meal diet, 2) 500 mg glycerol monobutyrat / kg added to the basal diet. Six replicates were set up for each treatment group, with 21 birds per replicate. The trial started at week 55 and lasted for 8 weeks. Alpha diversity indices (Ace, Chao1, Shannon, Simpson, goods_coverage, and PD_whole tree) were not different between the two groups. Notably, dietary GMB significantly decreased the abundances of Proteobacteria at phylum level and the abundances of Enterobacter at genus level (P < 0.01), but there was no significant difference in the composition of other cecal microbiota. the present study revealed that supplementation with 500 mg/kg glycerol monobutyrate had limited effect on cecal microbial composition in the late stage of laying hens.