ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE January 2024 23 acid. Butyric acid has been reported to have several benefits by improving the gut integrity, barrier function, and reducing inflammation. Overall, the maturation of the gut microbiome results in a more resilient microbiota which can withstand challenges and support the birds in better digestion as well as utilization of nutrients. In fact, birds are most vulnerable to challenges during the initial stages of this maturation process. Interestingly, a comparison of high versus low performing flocks (~300g difference in body weight) showed that high performing birds had a more mature microbiome at an earlier age. Moreover, this could have helped the high performing birds to be more resilient to various environmental challenges, and divert more nutrients towards production performance. Low performing flocks were characterized by a lower abundance of lactate-producing bacteria during the first 14 days of production, resulting in lower numbers of short chain fatty acid (SCFA) producing bacteria at 35 days of age. The low producing birds showed higher abundance of several opportunistic harmful bacteria (Proteobacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella etc.), resulting in increased bacteria and food safety risk. Based on these findings, dietary interventions can be designed and implemented with changes in raw materials, nutrient levels, and using specific feed additives to promote a more favorable microbiome maturation, while keeping harmful bacteria under control. INFLUENCING GUT MICROBIOME MATURATION USING FEED ADDITIVES a. Postbiotics Learnings from these field trials, with respect to maturation of the gut microbiome, were used to evaluate the microbiome modulation benefit of a postbiotic-based feed additive. Postbiotics are defined by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) as preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confer a health benefit on the host. A metanalysis of nine trials was conducted comparing birds with and without dietary inclusion of postbiotics, focusing on the changes in microbiome using microarray assay and artificial intelligence biomarker identification. The artificial intelligence model generated from the analysis revealed that nine out of ten biomarkers at 14d of age from the birds were linked to lactate producing bacteria. Interestingly, the dietary inclusion of postbiotics resulted in significantly higher abundance of lactate producers at 14d, which promoted the growth of Lachnospiraceae (short chain fatty acid producers), indicative of an early maturation of gut microbiome compared to the respective no-additive control. b. Syngery between postbotics and essential oil compounds In addition to that, a unique combination of postbiotics with a proprietary blend of essential oil compounds was evaluated for gut microbiome modFigure 1. Healthy gut microbiome maturation profile in broilers
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