Inulin, a prebiotic, is an attractive alternative to antibiotic growth promoters in chickens. Dietary supplementation with inulin can improve growth performance, carcass yield, immune system activity, and serum biochemical parameters in chickens. A few studies investigated the impact of dietary inulin supplementation on chicken intestinal microbiota. In this study, we investigated how and why dietary supplementation with 1, 2, and 4% inulin can affect body weight gain, feed intake, food conversion rate, immunological parameters, serum biochemical parameters, and composition and dynamics of the cecal microbiota of Tegel broiler chickens using quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (qFISH). We showed that inulin inclusion has a negative effect on growth performance parameters before day 21 and a positive effect subsequently up to day 42. Quantitative FISH data revealed an age-dependent change in the cecal microbiota in the control broilers fed no inulin. Thus, relative abundances of Firmicutes and Actinobacteria decreased from 52.8 to 48.3% of total cells and from 8.7 to 1.4% at days 7 and 42, respectively. However, relative abundances of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria gradually increased from 9.3 to 26.9% of the total cells and from 10.7 to 21.1%, respectively, over the same periods. Inulin inclusion appeared to lower the relative abundances of Lactobacillus johnsonii and Bifidobacterium species at an early bird age, but it subsequently significantly (P < 0.05) increased their relative abundances. Such increases positively correlated with body weight gain of the birds, determined after day 21. Thus, dietary supplementation with inulin together with the addition of L. johnsonii and Bifidobacterium (B. gallinarum and B. pullorum) cultures at an early age may help overcome its early negative influence on growth performance. We believe that these findings can improve our knowledge on how inulin can change the intestinal microbiota of broiler chickens and help in developing an inulin feeding regime to optimize its beneficial role in chicken development.

中文翻译：

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日粮添加菊粉对肉鸡盲肠微生物群的组成和动态以及生长相关参数的影响。

菊粉是一种益生元，是鸡中抗生素生长促进剂的一种有吸引力的替代品。日粮中添加菊粉可以提高鸡的生长性能、胴体产量、免疫系统活性和血清生化参数。一些研究调查了膳食菊粉补充剂对鸡肠道微生物群的影响。在本研究中，我们研究了膳食补充剂中添加 1%、2% 和 4% 菊粉如何以及为何会影响体重增加、采食量、食物转化率、免疫学参数、血清生化参数以及 Tegel 盲肠微生物群的组成和动态。使用定量荧光原位杂交（qFISH）的肉鸡。我们表明，菊粉在第 21 天之前对生长性能参数有负面影响，随后在第 42 天之前有正面影响。定量 FISH 数据显示，未饲喂菊粉的对照肉鸡的盲肠微生物群存在年龄依赖性变化。因此，在第 7 天和第 42 天，厚壁菌门和放线菌的相对丰度分别从总细胞的 52.8% 下降到 48.3%，从 8.7% 下降到 1.4%。然而，在同一时期，拟杆菌门和变形杆菌门的相对丰度分别从总细胞的 9.3% 和 10.7% 增加到 26.9% 和 21.1%。菊粉的加入似乎降低了早鸟年龄时约氏乳杆菌和双歧杆菌的相对丰度，但随后显着增加了它们的相对丰度（P < 0.05）。这种增加与鸡只体重增加呈正相关，在第 21 天后确定。因此，在膳食中添加菊粉和添加 L. 早年培养约氏杆菌和双歧杆菌（鸡双歧杆菌和白痢杆菌）可能有助于克服其早期对生长性能的负面影响。我们相信，这些发现可以提高我们对菊粉如何改变肉鸡肠道微生物群的认识，并有助于开发菊粉喂养方案以优化其在鸡发育中的有益作用。