Machine Learning Tool Shows How Postbiotic Helps Broiler Gut Microbiome Maturation

Advanced microbiome analysis using non-lethal sampling and machine learning can guide changes on broiler farms that lead to earlier gut maturation in birds and performance gains, according to research using the technology with multiple flocks.

While the links between poultry gut microbiomes and performance are well established, what has been less clear is how to interpret microbiological data and act on microbiome insights, explained Dr. Vivek Kuttappan, DVM, PhD, poultry technology lead, micronutrition and health solutions for Cargill Animal Nutrition.

“When you run analysis, you can have thousands of bacteria there, and you may see some going up and some going down. But you don't really know how that is going to affect the bird performance,” he said.

This dilemma led Cargill to develop Galleon™, a microbiome assessment platform that uses a microarray assay to process cloacal swabs from birds, compare the results with one of the largest poultry microbiome databases available, and employ machine learning algorithms to relate flock microbiomes to nutrition, health and bird management practices.

“Galleon is mainly intended to navigate us through this large amount of data from a farm and get meaningful insights, which can help lead to changes to support performance,” he added.

Supplement study tests gut maturation

One of the main learnings from using the technology is when comparing farms that are performing well with those that are underperforming, there is a difference in gut microbiome maturation, he said, with those of birds on the high-performing farms developing in a more systematic way. This was proven in a feed additive study using commercial broilers.¹

In the work, Kuttappan’s team randomly assigned birds to be fed the supplement Dia-V^® MBPRO on top of a base corn-soy diet, alongside a control group that were fed just the base diet. The product is a combination of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae postbiotic and essential oil compounds.

The scientists recorded body weight and feed conversion and took cloacal samples at 21 and 33 days of age for microbiome analysis using Galleon.

They found that feeding birds Dia-V MBPRO resulted in improved body weight, feed conversion ratio and breast meat yield, all to statistical significance compared to the control group. Perhaps the most telling findings, however, related to the microbiome composition at different stages of the study.

“What we saw is that at 21 days, the microbiome profile is different between the control and the birds fed the supplement. But at 35 days, when the birds are older, and they are reaching to their market age, their microbiome looks similar. So basically, they reach the same goal, but at different rates,” Kuttappan said.

“Another interesting finding we observed was that, at 21 days of age, the microbiomes of supplement-treated birds were closer to the 35 days results for the control birds, meaning that the product is helping accelerate that gut microbiome maturation process, so that the microbiome reaches that more resilient population early on in life.”

Pursuing deeper understanding

Accelerated gut microbiome maturation and improved performance were the headline results, but using Galleon’s AI model and huge comparative database, the scientists were able to glean deeper insights.

They found that the supplement appeared to be promoting what are known as butyrate-producing bacteria, which contribute to gut health, while managing undesirable bacteria such as the opportunistic pathogen Clostridium perfringens and Listeria, which can cause foodborne illness in humans.

In the case of the latter, Listeria is a type of bacteria that used protein in the gut to flourish. Its lack of presence in the hindgut suggests that Dia-V MBPRO has a role in improving protein digestibility in the upper digestive tract.

Broad applications

Galleon is being used in several other areas of Cargill’s work, Kuttappan continued. This includes research exploring the effects of organic acids or essential oil-based products. Another approach is employed by the company’s feed formulation team, which tends to start from a microbiome analysis of a farm, to look at the overall composition of diets and what needs to change. An important factor to consider in this, he noted, is that Galleon is not tied to a specific product, so there’s no prerogative to sell anything on the back of the results.

Further uses might include comparing poultry houses with different performance, analyzing microbiota associated with food safety concerns, and even as a means of assessing management choices such as ventilation and vaccination.

One of the advantages of using the technology is that it doesn’t require the lethal sampling of any birds, which can humanely enable clearer insights on microbiome changes over time.

“Collecting samples from ileum or ceca of the bird, you may have to sacrifice the bird to collect those samples. And the disadvantage there is you're selecting one bird, sampling and analyzing. Then if you want to look at a different time point, you will be collecting another bird,” Kuttappan explained.

“The problem is this is so uneven, with bird-to-bird variation, so you need to have ways to remove the noise and look at what is happening. That is where the advantage of Galleon is; it's non-invasive. You just collect a cloacal swab, the bird is alive, and you can track the same bird, looking at different time points.”

Ultimately, microbiological insights bring financial savings for producers, he said, pointing to the example of a layer customer who had birds with an unusually high feed intake, but static production performance, meaning they were losing money.

“When we went there, we identified that they have some problems with enteritis, and we looked at some bacteria populations using Galleon,” he said.

“Based on the analysis, we made changes in the feed formulation and used a combination of a couple of additives, the result being that we were able to reduce the feed intake while keeping production the same, which meant the customer made considerable savings.”

 

For more information, visit Cargill Animal Nutrition’s website or contact your Cargill representative.

 

¹ Kuttappan, VA. 2024. Impact of a novel combination of postbiotic and essential oil compounds to support gut microbiome maturation and performance in broilers. Poultry Science Association Annual Meeting.