In poultry, we focus a lot on achieving a healthy gut since a well-functioning gut is the key engine for growth, health and welfare of the birds. Robustness of the microbiome is closely linked to gut health. That is why good care should be taken of the chicken’s gut microbiota as part of all management practices.
In recent years, knowledge about the gut microbiome has increased tremendously in both humans and animals. Actually, for humans, the microbiome is approximately 1.5kg of bacteria that we are carrying every day. These bacteria and other microorganism that are part of the gut microbiota are mainly favourable to humans and are acting at the interface of the external world and our body. There is much research leading to the conclusion that this microbiome has an unbelievable impact, not only on the digestive system, but also on the rest of the human or animal body. It influences the immune system, the central nervous system and can as such even affect mood and behaviour.
Microbiome stability can be defined as the optimal robustness over time between the beneficial bacteria and the pathogenic or non-beneficial bacteria in the intestinal tract of the birds. Microbiome stability supports optimal intestinal health, a better welfare and thus a higher sustainability of poultry production (Figure 1).
During its life, a chicken faces many challenges to maintain its microbiome stability. The former way to manage pathogens and thus the microbiota by using massive amounts of chemicals (zinc, copper, antibiotics) is over. At the same time, it is still a dream to remove pathogens from modern poultry production, so viable alternatives are needed. Additionally, the use of highly digestive substances is becoming increasingly inefficient from an economic standpoint. As a result, the strategic nutritional formulation is moving to less security and safety for the birds. More use of wheat, Distiller’s Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS), sunflower meal, rapeseed meal or even peas instead of soy meal and corn is being seen. So not only are less chemicals accepted by the consumers and authorities, but also economically we are looking for alternative raw materials sources, for example, as a by-product. Ultimately, the pathogens are still there, and the physiology of the birds is even more challenged with higher growth rates and feed intake. Genetic enhancements are ongoing, but eventually it takes time for birds to develop and mature their physiological enzyme system, immune system, digestive structure of villi and microvilli.
Maintaining microbiome robustness by making sure the digestive tract is populated with a diverse and functional microbiota is crucial for the chicken to withstand the challenges of being a production animal. Previous nutritional and farm management practices were to remove all pathogens. Nowadays more holistic approaches are being looked at for obtaining a robust gut microbiota that provides protection against pathogens and shapes the digestive physiology and the immune system in beneficial ways. Robustness depends on the diversity of the microbiome, so it is not enough just to have the presence of a few different beneficial microbes, like cultivating hectares of only one crop. Too little so-called beta diversity will make the microbiota more susceptible to challenges, and thus highly unstable. One can say that if changes are introduced in the life of the chicken (like feed transition as a key example), there is a lack of a plan B to adjust to this new reality because there are simply too few good bacteria to carry the torch. On the other hand, having a good diversity of different microbes with beneficial properties allows adjustment, adaptation and the ability to take advantage of the different attributes of the variety of favourable species and strains. A lack of diversity makes the whole digestive system extremely fragile and very susceptible to any change.
In that sense, the ideal is to achieve a microbiota in the gut which looks like a forest: many vegetal, a lot of diversity of herbs, fungi and plants, and ultimately huge trees which dominate the rest of the vegetal, making it difficult for the bad herbs to become dominant. This is achieved by the natural competition on sun, earth and water and their established dominance (Figure 2).
A high diversity provides more functional potential to the microbiota. The more diverse, the more robust and stable it will be. The favourable bacteria will be so dominant that they will de facto prevent pathogenic bacteria to multiply. Just like trees in the forest dominate the other vegetal species, the established dominance dictates the natural competition.
When we consider the life of a chicken, not much is currently done to achieve microbiome robustness and stability and many challenges are rising on the horizon. Actually, quite a lot of different events are happening due to management practices, which can affect the microbiome robustness. These challenges are shown in Figure 3.
1 st days: Feed intake and first bacterial implementation challenge
Feed can be considered the fuel of the digestive engine. When considering the chick weight and the amount of feed it needs to ingest every day, the challenge is very high. For instance, day 1, the ratio between the feed intake and the weight is superior to 30%! For a 4kg human baby, this would represent the ingestion of 1.2kg of food and something like 2 litres of water. Feed, water, heat and oxygen are the key elements for bacterial establishment during the first days of life. Since the digestive tract of the newly hatched chicken is virtually sterile, or comparable to a desert with respect of vegetation, it is easy to understand that there is a massive opportunity for any pathogenic bacteria to grow in such an environment without competition from good bacteria.
A lot of research shows that this first implementation is based on chance. Any bacteria present in the environment of the day-old birds is likely to be present in the gut of the chick. It explains why there is typically a gram-negative challenge (E coli, Salmonella) early in life. These bacteria have the capacity to multiply quickly and to take advantage of the new environment: a desert where feed, water, heat and oxygen are in abundance, but no other vegetation to compete these resources. Besides causing pathogenic infections, these bacteria take up the ecological niches in the digestive tract, making it more difficult for more beneficial bacteria to establish. As a result, it is likely that it will lead to a less stable and robust microflora which will require antibiotic treatment to keep the balance in check and provoke subsequently mortality.
2 nd and 3 rd week: the microbiota shift
The feed intake challenge is diminishing in the 2nd and 3rd weeks of the chick’s life (still 20% of feed intake over the individual weight). However, there are other reasons making these weeks very challenging for the microbiome. A natural part of the microbiome establishment is the lower availability of oxygen in the gut happening after the aerotolerant species have established. At this point in time, the strict anaerobic bacteria can colonise. The strict anaerobes are favourable for the bird and gram-positive. However, one of them is Clostridium perfringens, a pathogen causing necrotic enteritis. Typically, these bacteria reside at the very end of the digestive tract, in the caeca where oxygen is very low, but they can take advantage of the retro-peristaltic movements of the chicken gut to move up and start proliferation in the small intestine. Clostridium perfringens proliferates, leads to an unhealthy balance of the microbiota called dysbiosis, eventually resulting in necrotic enteritis between day 14 and day 18. This is a very typical observation which is also simultaneous to a brutal feed transition between starter and grower diet. It can be even more dramatic in case of vaccination during this period.
4 th and 5 th week: Coccidia and mucus production
These 2 weeks are dominated by the Eimeria challenges which will occur in all farms, regardless of the vaccination programme or chemical/ionophore-based programme in place. There will be sporozoites of coccidia (either wild or vaccinal strains) which will be in close contact with the epithelial cells of the intestine. As a matter of defence, the first line of protection will be an increased production of mucus by the goblet cells. The aim will be to build and reinforce a wall of mucus to protect the intestine from the parasites’ attack. Unfortunately, some pathogens may take advantage of this mucus production. We call them mucolytic bacteria. Not only are they able to survive and multiply within the newly produced layers of mucus but also, they can use the mucus as a source of energy for their own development. As a result, they multiply in situ, in very close contact with the top of the epithelial cells. It is obvious that it will lead to a digestive syndrome so-called dysbacteriosis or dysbiosis. Ultimately, this may be even more damaging when there is the production of digestive toxins such as alpha or net-B toxins produced by Clostridium perfringens.
At the same time, this is a period where the broiler producer wants to make the most profit out of its production. The feed intake and the growth rate are becoming very high. This is the period when feed efficiency matters the most. Thus, it is even more critical to maintain a healthy and robust microbiome. Each day of a poorly balanced microbiota can lead to a potential loss of 80 to 100g of body weight/bird. That is equal to 0.08 to 0.1 € /bird of revenue. Considering production of 10,000,000 birds/year, the loss becomes a significant amount of money (€ 800,000 to 1,000,000).
In addition, this is a period of intense feed intake stress for the microbiome: brutal transition from grower to finisher feed followed by another transition from finisher to withdrawal feed. When the market needs are there, the poultry producer may use the thinning method when part of the flock will be slaughtered while the rest will stay in place for further growing time in the barn. This is requiring a brutal stop in feeding and drinking the animals for carcass quality reasons. This leads to a complete disruption of microbiome. In a couple of hours, the intestinal content and thus the nutrients, are reduced to a minimal presence, as well as the water content of the digestive tract. When the thinning is finished, the birds typically turn to an over consumption of feed in a short period of time. The microbiome, already challenged by the fasting period now has more feed to be used for rapid development. How do we manage this? Well, we pay a little attention to this practice from a microbiome standpoint. However, there is no doubt that this is completely disturbing the microbiome stability and robustness.
The modern poultry industry should consider microbiome stability as a key goal to achieve sustainable poultry production in the future. This is probably the very early stage of a concept which will revolutionise our approach to the intestinal content of the chicken. Whatever the tools, techniques, approaches available in the future, 3 key goals need to be achieved:
We are at the very beginning of a new era for knowledge and understanding of the chicken’s microbiome. We are scratching the surface of something bigger. However, what we know from other species, including humans, can make us optimistic. The progresses will be fast. It will undoubtedly allow the development of new solutions better accepted by modern poultry production and by consumers.
Author: Christophe Bostvironnois and Randi Lundberg, Chr Hansen, Denmark
"*" indicates required fields
Chr Hansen is a leading, global bioscience company. We deliver natural innovative solutions that address global challenges by advancing food, health and productivity. We develop and produce cultures, enzymes, probiotics and natural colors for a rich variety of foods, confectionery, beverages, dietary supplements as well as even animal feed and plant protection. Our product innovation is based on more than 50,000 microbial strains – we like to refer to them as “good bacteria.” Our solutions enable food manufacturers to produce more with less – while also reducing the use of chemicals and other synthetic additives – which makes our products highly relevant in today’s world. We have been delivering value to our partners – and, ultimately, end consumers worldwide – for more than 140 years. We are proud that more than 1 billion people consume products containing our natural ingredients every day. More about Chr. Hansen
Chr Hansen is a leading, global bioscience company. We deliver natural innovative solutions that address global challenges by advancing food, health and productivity. We develop and produce cultures, enzymes, probiotics and natural colors for a rich variety of foods, confectionery, beverages, dietary supplements as well as even animal feed and plant protection. Our product innovation is based on more than 50,000 microbial strains – we like to refer to them as “good bacteria.” Our solutions enable food manufacturers to produce more with less – while also reducing the use of chemicals and other synthetic additives – which makes our products highly relevant in today’s world. We have been delivering value to our partners – and, ultimately, end consumers worldwide – for more than 140 years. We are proud that more than 1 billion people consume products containing our natural ingredients every day. More about Chr. Hansen
Notifications
Your Privacy Matters
It's your legal right to choose which information a website may store and have access to. With your permission, we and our third-party partners (13) store and/or access information on a device, such as unique identifiers in cookies and browsing data to collect and process personal data.
We and our partners do the following data processing:
Store and/or access information on a device, Advertising based on limited data and advertising measurement, Personalised content, content measurement, audience research, and services development
If you accept any or all of these, you will have agreed to this website's use of cookies for these purposes. You may also choose to refuse consent, but certain personalized features of the site won't be available to you.
Privacy Preference Center
You can accept or reject data collection and processing all at once by using the buttons below, or you can tailor individual consents by switching the toggles on and off beside each purpose or feature. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent and legitimate interest. In the Vendors tab, you will find a list of our partners and have the option to customize your consent for each of them and object to data processing for those who claim a legitimate interest to process your data.
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Most purposes explained in this notice rely on the storage or accessing of information from your device when you use an app or visit a website. For example, a vendor or publisher might need to store a cookie on your device during your first visit on a website, to be able to recognise your device during your next visits (by accessing this cookie each time).
Advertising can be presented based on limited data. Advertising performance can be measured.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
A car manufacturer wants to promote its electric vehicles to environmentally conscious users living in the city after office hours. The advertising is presented on a page with related content (such as an article on climate change actions) after 6:30 p.m. to users whose non-precise location suggests that they are in an urban zone.
A large producer of watercolour paints wants to carry out an online advertising campaign for its latest watercolour range, diversifying its audience to reach as many amateur and professional artists as possible and avoiding showing the ad next to mismatched content (for instance, articles about how to paint your house). The number of times that the ad has been presented to you is detected and limited, to avoid presenting it too often.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
You have clicked on an advertisement about a “black Friday” discount by an online shop on the website of a publisher and purchased a product. Your click will be linked to this purchase. Your interaction and that of other users will be measured to know how many clicks on the ad led to a purchase.
You are one of very few to have clicked on an advertisement about an “international appreciation day” discount by an online gift shop within the app of a publisher. The publisher wants to have reports to understand how often a specific ad placement within the app, and notably the “international appreciation day” ad, has been viewed or clicked by you and other users, in order to help the publisher and its partners (such as agencies) optimise ad placements.
Content can be personalised based on your profile. Your activity on this service can be used to build or improve a profile about you for personalised content. Content performance can be measured. Reports can be generated based on your activity and those of others. Your activity on this service can help develop and improve products and services.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
You read several articles on how to build a treehouse on a social media platform. This information might be added to a profile to mark your interest in content related to outdoors as well as do-it-yourself guides (with the objective of allowing the personalisation of content, so that for example you are presented with more blog posts and articles on treehouses and wood cabins in the future).
You have viewed three videos on space exploration across different TV apps. An unrelated news platform with which you have had no contact builds a profile based on that viewing behaviour, marking space exploration as a topic of possible interest for other videos.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
You read articles on vegetarian food on a social media platform and then use the cooking app of an unrelated company. The profile built about you on the social media platform will be used to present you vegetarian recipes on the welcome screen of the cooking app.
You have viewed three videos about rowing across different websites. An unrelated video sharing platform will recommend five other videos on rowing that may be of interest to you when you use your TV app, based on a profile built about you when you visited those different websites to watch online videos.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
You have read a blog post about hiking on a mobile app of a publisher and followed a link to a recommended and related post. Your interactions will be recorded as showing that the initial hiking post was useful to you and that it was successful in interesting you in the related post. This will be measured to know whether to produce more posts on hiking in the future and where to place them on the home screen of the mobile app.
You were presented a video on fashion trends, but you and several other users stopped watching after 30 seconds. This information is then used to evaluate the right length of future videos on fashion trends.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
The owner of an online bookstore wants commercial reporting showing the proportion of visitors who consulted and left its site without buying, or consulted and bought the last celebrity autobiography of the month, as well as the average age and the male/female distribution of each category. Data relating to your navigation on its site and to your personal characteristics is then used and combined with other such data to produce these statistics.
An advertiser wants to better understand the type of audience interacting with its adverts. It calls upon a research institute to compare the characteristics of users who interacted with the ad with typical attributes of users of similar platforms, across different devices. This comparison reveals to the advertiser that its ad audience is mainly accessing the adverts through mobile devices and is likely in the 45-60 age range.
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
A technology platform working with a social media provider notices a growth in mobile app users, and sees based on their profiles that many of them are connecting through mobile connections. It uses a new technology to deliver ads that are formatted for mobile devices and that are low-bandwidth, to improve their performance.
An advertiser is looking for a way to display ads on a new type of consumer device. It collects information regarding the way users interact with this new kind of device to determine whether it can build a new mechanism for displaying advertising on this type of device.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
A travel magazine has published an article on its website about the new online courses proposed by a language school, to improve travelling experiences abroad. The school’s blog posts are inserted directly at the bottom of the page, and selected on the basis of your non-precise location (for instance, blog posts explaining the course curriculum for different languages than the language of the country you are situated in).
A sports news mobile app has started a new section of articles covering the most recent football games. Each article includes videos hosted by a separate streaming platform showcasing the highlights of each match. If you fast-forward a video, this information may be used to select a shorter video to play next.
By giving consent to the purposes and features listed here, you give us and our partners the ability to: Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors , Deliver and present advertising and content
Some of our partners process personal data without your consent on the basis of a legitimate interest. You can review purposes below and by expanding, see a list of each partner claiming legitimate interest for the purpose. To object to the processing on the basis of legitimate interest for any of the purposes below, switch off the toggle beside it.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
A car manufacturer wants to promote its electric vehicles to environmentally conscious users living in the city after office hours. The advertising is presented on a page with related content (such as an article on climate change actions) after 6:30 p.m. to users whose non-precise location suggests that they are in an urban zone.
A large producer of watercolour paints wants to carry out an online advertising campaign for its latest watercolour range, diversifying its audience to reach as many amateur and professional artists as possible and avoiding showing the ad next to mismatched content (for instance, articles about how to paint your house). The number of times that the ad has been presented to you is detected and limited, to avoid presenting it too often.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
You have clicked on an advertisement about a “black Friday” discount by an online shop on the website of a publisher and purchased a product. Your click will be linked to this purchase. Your interaction and that of other users will be measured to know how many clicks on the ad led to a purchase.
You are one of very few to have clicked on an advertisement about an “international appreciation day” discount by an online gift shop within the app of a publisher. The publisher wants to have reports to understand how often a specific ad placement within the app, and notably the “international appreciation day” ad, has been viewed or clicked by you and other users, in order to help the publisher and its partners (such as agencies) optimise ad placements.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
You have read a blog post about hiking on a mobile app of a publisher and followed a link to a recommended and related post. Your interactions will be recorded as showing that the initial hiking post was useful to you and that it was successful in interesting you in the related post. This will be measured to know whether to produce more posts on hiking in the future and where to place them on the home screen of the mobile app.
You were presented a video on fashion trends, but you and several other users stopped watching after 30 seconds. This information is then used to evaluate the right length of future videos on fashion trends.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
The owner of an online bookstore wants commercial reporting showing the proportion of visitors who consulted and left its site without buying, or consulted and bought the last celebrity autobiography of the month, as well as the average age and the male/female distribution of each category. Data relating to your navigation on its site and to your personal characteristics is then used and combined with other such data to produce these statistics.
An advertiser wants to better understand the type of audience interacting with its adverts. It calls upon a research institute to compare the characteristics of users who interacted with the ad with typical attributes of users of similar platforms, across different devices. This comparison reveals to the advertiser that its ad audience is mainly accessing the adverts through mobile devices and is likely in the 45-60 age range.
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
A technology platform working with a social media provider notices a growth in mobile app users, and sees based on their profiles that many of them are connecting through mobile connections. It uses a new technology to deliver ads that are formatted for mobile devices and that are low-bandwidth, to improve their performance.
An advertiser is looking for a way to display ads on a new type of consumer device. It collects information regarding the way users interact with this new kind of device to determine whether it can build a new mechanism for displaying advertising on this type of device.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
A travel magazine has published an article on its website about the new online courses proposed by a language school, to improve travelling experiences abroad. The school’s blog posts are inserted directly at the bottom of the page, and selected on the basis of your non-precise location (for instance, blog posts explaining the course curriculum for different languages than the language of the country you are situated in).
A sports news mobile app has started a new section of articles covering the most recent football games. Each article includes videos hosted by a separate streaming platform showcasing the highlights of each match. If you fast-forward a video, this information may be used to select a shorter video to play next.
Our partners are listed below. Expand each partner to view and modify consent for purposes and features. Additionally, you can object to purposes on the basis of legitimate interest.