The use of inulin and wheat bran only during the starter period or during the entire rearing life of broilers: effects on growth performance, small intestinal maturation, and cecal microbial colonization until slaughter age.
Inulin and wheat bran were added to broiler diets during the starter period or during the entire rearing period to investigate whether the effects of using these ingredients remained until slaughter age. Diets containing no inulin and no wheat bran (CON), 2% inulin (IN), 10% wheat bran (WB), or 2% inulin + 10% wheat bran (IN+WB) were provided until day 11. Thereafter, each dietary treatment was further divided into a continued diet with supplementation or a control diet, resulting in 7 groups (CON, IN/IN, IN/CON, WB/WB, WB/CON, IN+WB/IN+WB, or IN+WB/CON). On day 40, 12 chickens per group were euthanized. The IN/IN group increased the cecal molar ratio of butyrate but had a lower relative abundance of Lactobacillus (P < 0.05). Additionally, the cecal molar ratio of propionate was higher in the IN/CON group compared to the IN/IN group (P = 0.034). The WB/CON group had the best results on BW and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P < 0.05). Only the cecal molar ratio of iso-butyrate was higher in the WB/WB group (P = 0.013). Moreover, compared to the CON group, both WB/WB and WB/CON groups reduced the relative abundances of Bifidobacterium and Escherichia coli, and only the WB/WB group reduced the relative abundance of Enterobacteriaceae (P < 0.05). Both IN+WB/IN+WB and IN+WB/CON groups increased BW until day 21 and lowered the relative abundance of Bifidobacterium (P < 0.05). The IN+WB/IN+WB group increased the cecal molar ratio of butyrate but reduced the molar ratio of propionate with a higher relative abundance of Enterobacteriaceae (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the lack of positive effects induced by inulin might be explained by the dose being too high. The beneficial effects on BW, FCR, and microbiota induced by wheat bran during the starter period were lasting when supplementation was stopped, suggesting that wheat bran could be a favorable ingredient during the starter period.
['Li|Bing|B|', 'Schroyen|Martine|M|', 'Leblois|Julie|J|', 'Beckers|Yves|Y|', 'Bindelle|Jérôme|J|', 'Everaert|Nadia|N|']
D000821:Animal Feed D000824:Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena D000818:Animals D001419:Bacteria D002432:Cecum D002645:Chickens D004032:Diet D004043:Dietary Fiber D005232:Fatty Acids, Volatile D015870:Gene Expression D007413:Intestinal Mucosa D007421:Intestine, Small D007422:Intestines D007444:Inulin D008297:Male D056692:Prebiotics D011897:Random Allocation D013997:Time Factors
inulin wheat bran broiler chicken cecal microbiota short chain fatty acid