Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » College Station, Texas » Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #317902

Title: Role of Bacillus subtilis direct-fed microbial on digesta viscosity, bacterial translocation, and bone mineralization in turkey poults fed with a rye-based diet

Author
item LATORRE, JUAN - University Of Arkansas
item HERNANDEZ, XOCHITL - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico
item Kogut, Michael - Mike
item VICENTE, JOSE - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico
item WOLFENDEN, ROSS - University Of Arkansas
item WOLFENDEN, AMANDA - University Of Arkansas
item HARGIS, BILLY - University Of Arkansas
item KUTTAPPAN, VIVEK - University Of Arkansas
item TELLEZ, GUILLERMO - University Of Arkansas

Submitted to: Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/30/2014
Publication Date: 12/16/2014
Publication URL: http://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/61140
Citation: Latorre, J.D., Hernandez, X., Kogut, M.H., Vicente, J., Wolfenden, R., Wolfenden, A., Hargis, B., Kuttappan, V., Tellez, G. 2014. Role of Bacillus subtilis direct-fed microbial on digesta viscosity, bacterial translocation, and bone mineralization in turkey poults fed with a rye-based diet. Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases. 1:Article 26.

Interpretive Summary: Corn is the main grain that provides energy to a baby turkey poult’s diet so that it can grow. However, at the present time corn is very expensive to use in animal diets. Therefore, alternative grain products are being investigated for their ability to provide energy to a growing poults diet. Rye is one such grain to be considered as a feed energy source for a baby poult’s diet. These experiments show that a rye-based diet is not a good feed ingredient because it causes damage to the baby poults intestine that result in poor growth by the poult. These experiments are important to poultry nutritionists because they show that rye is not a good source of energy for baby poults diets and that different grains need to be tested to see if they will help the growth of baby turkey poults.

Technical Abstract: Rye contains high concentrations of non-starch polysaccharides (NSP), leading to reduced digestibility. Since poultry have little or no endogenous enzymes capable of hydrolyzing these NSP, exogenous carbohydrases as feed additives are used in an attempt to reduce the anti-nutritional effects of these polysaccharides. Previously, an in vitro study conducted in our laboratory showed that inclusion of certain Bacillus direct-fed microbial (DFM) candidates that produce exogenous phytase, lipase, protease, cellulose, and xylanase in high NSP diets significantly reduced both digesta viscosity and Clostridium perfringens proliferation. In the present study, rye-based turkey starter diets with or without Bacillus-DFM were administered ad libitum to day-of-hatch turkey poults in two independent experiments. In both experiments, day-of-hatch turkey poults were randomly assigned to either a control diet (CON) or a DFM treated diet (n = 25 birds/group). At ten days–of-age, all turkey poults from experiments 1 and 2 were weighed and 12 turkey poults/group were randomly selected and humanely killed. Liver samples were aseptically collected to evaluate bacterial translocation, and intestinal digesta samples were individually collected to evaluate viscosity. Additionally, in experiment 2 both tibias were removed for assessment of bone parameters. In both experiments, the TRT group showed a reduction in the total number of coliforms in the liver as well as a reduced digesta viscosity when compared to the CON group (P<0.05). Turkey poults fed the Bacillus-DFM candidate had increased tibia diameter, breaking strength, ash content, calcium content, and phosphorus content when compared with CON turkey poults. In summary, turkey poults fed with a rye-based diet without DFM showed an increase in bacterial translocation and digesta viscosity, accompanied by a reduction in bone mineralization; however these adverse effects can be prevented by the inclusion of a selected Bacillus-DFM candidate in high NSP diets.