Location: Food and Feed Safety Research
Project Number: 3091-32000-037-075-N
Project Type: Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2026
End Date: Jun 30, 2028
Objective:
To determine the extent to which regional water hardness alters the antimicrobial and antioxidant efficacy of tannic acid in broiler chickens infected with Salmonella Typhimurium, quantifying pathogen load, translocation, growth performance, intestinal morphology, antioxidant status, gene expression, microbiome profiles, and cecal tannic acid levels under different water sources with/without tannic acid.
Approach:
ARS will conduct an in-vivo broiler study (D0–D10) to test how water hardness modifies the antimicrobial and antioxidant efficacy of tannic acid against Salmonella Typhimurium. A 2 × 2 factorial will compare water source (Lubbock Municipal vs. College Station Municipal water) and tannic acid supplementation (0 vs. 1000 mg/kg in the starter diet). Five operational groups will be run as listed: A non-challenge College Station water group, plus four Salmonella-challenged groups spanning both waters and ± tannic acid. Each treatment will have 8 pens, 5 birds/pen (200 birds total), with mash feed ad libitum. Day-0 inoculation will use the USDA-ARS model; water will be collected and dechlorinated in 5-gal containers (total 60 L per source). Sampling will occur on D4, D7 (one bird/pen each) and D10 (final endpoint). Cooperator will conduct analyses including ileum/cecum Salmonella quantification, liver & spleen translocation, growth performance (BW, FI, FCR), and gut health/mechanistic markers (intestinal morphology; liver antioxidant status; jejunal qPCR for Salmonella response/stress; cecal microbiome; and cecal tannic acid content).