New issues and science in broiler chicken intestinal health: intestinal microbial composition, shifts, and impacts

Abstract

Intestinal health is important for maximising the health, welfare, and performance of poultry. In addition, intestinal health issues in poultry can have devastating financial impacts for producers, and food safety concerns for consumers. Until recently, intestinal health issues were seen as a handful of known infectious agents leading to a set of severe and identifiable named diseases. There is however an emerging area which depicts intestinal health as a more complex and multifaceted system than previously known. Recent progress in technology suitable for microbial community analysis has evolved our understanding of the chicken intestinal microbiome. It is now understood that shifts in the composition of microbial communities can occur. These shifts can result in a series of implications, including: disease, welfare, environmental, and food safety concerns. Minor shifts in intestinal microbial balance can result in a wide continuum of disease presentations ranging from severe to mild clinical, subclinical or asymptotic. Differential diagnosis of poultry intestinal health issues may be challenging and is important for applying appropriate treatment options. This review discusses new and emerging topics in broiler chicken intestinal health, with a focus on microbial composition, newly discovered microbial shifts in classical poultry diseases, range in severity of enteric diseases, newly identified organisms in normal intestinal flora, implications of shifts in intestinal microbial communities and diagnosis of emerging intestinal health issues in poultry.

Associations between phenotypic characteristics and clinical parameters of broilers and intestinal microbial development throughout a production cycle: A field study

“…Species‐level classification for 16S rRNA gene sequences remains a serious challenge, which limits the interpretation of the results. For example, Clostridium perfringens has been associated with dysbacteriosis and bacterial enteritis (Roberts et al, 2015; Teirlynck et al, 2011), but based on the used SILVA reference database the species Clostridium perfringens is a member of the genus Clostridium sensu stricto 1 that is predominant in day‐old broiler chickens without any clinical signs. Approaches providing a higher level of taxonomic and functional resolution will be needed, such as shotgun metagenomics, that allows for differentiation of functionally distinct, but phylogenetically similar populations.…”

The use of random forests modelling to detect yeast-mannan sensitive bacterial changes in the broiler cecum

“…and pathogenic Clostridia 2 , 31 – 34 . These infections cause poor flock health, reduced performance and increased mortalities resulting in economic losses to producers 3 , 35 . In addition, many of the studies into the effects of prebiotics on the GI microbiome and on host health have focused on specific beneficial bacterial populations such as Lactobacillus spp., or Bifidobacterium spp., which are known to affect intestinal health 36 , 37 .…”

Protocatechuic acid improved growth performance, meat quality, and intestinal health of Chinese yellow-feathered broilers

“…Intestinal health is increasingly recognized as important for maximizing the health, welfare, and performance of poultry. Intestinal sickness or injury has devastating financial impact for producers, and food safety concerns for consumers (Roberts et al, 2015). There is, therefore, a growing need for appropriate supplementation of broilers to promote intestinal health and further reduce losses caused by stress.…”