Intestinal microbiota composition and bile salt hydrolase activity in fast and slow growing broiler chickens: implications for growth performance and production efficiency.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Body weight is an important indicator of the overall health and production efficiency in broiler chickens. In broiler houses, body weight of chicks is variable despite the same genetics, hatching and feeding practices within a production system. The objective of this study was to investigate the intestinal microbiota and bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity in slow and fast growing broiler chickens, which belonged to the 10^th and 90^th percentile body weight groups, respectively.

Methods

A total of 300 Ross 308 broiler chickens (100 per cohort from three independent cohorts) were selected and mucosal samples from the jejunum, ileum, and cecum were collected at day of arrival, 11 and 25 (n = 450). Then, bacterial counts, 16S rRNA amplicon sequenc

SUBMITTER: Kim HW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12317501 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature