Effects of High-Protein Pastures on Intestinal Microflora of Qiandongnan Xiaoxiang Chickens

Zhang Tao; Tao Xiaoyan; Ran Jiang; Tang Yuanjiang; Lu Yuxi; Wen Zhengchang; Wang Xuan; Wang Qinghong; Liu Yan

doi:10.14083/j.issn.1001-4942.2025.03.013

Abstract：This experiment was conducted to study the effects of different forage on intestinal microflora of Qiandongnan Xiaoxiang chickens.Total of 180 Qiandongnan Xiaoxiang chickens aged 60 days with similar initial body weight were randomly divided into 3 groups with 3 replicates per group and 20 chickens per repli-cate.Group A(the control group)was fed the basal diet,group B and group C were fed the basal diet supple-mented with 20％white clover(Trifolium repens L.)and 20％Vicia villosa cv.varglabrescens,respectively.The trial period was 61 days,including 5 days of pre-feeding period and 56 days of trial period.After trial pe-riod,the cecal contents were collected and the high-throughput sequencing was performed to detect the micro-bial compositions in the cecum.The results showed that compared with group A,the number of intestinal mi-crobial OTUs in group B and group C increased,and the number of specific OTUs increased by 35.36％and 3.31％,respectively.There were no significant differences in Simpson index and Shannon index among the three groups.The Chao1 index of group B increased but was not significantly different with that of group A,while that of group C was significantly increased(P＜0.05).The ACE index of group C was significantly high-er than that of group A and group B.The relative abundance of Phocaeicola,Bacteroides,Prevotella and Gem-miger in group B and group C increased,while that of Lawsonibacter decreased.The linear discriminant analy-sis(LEfSe)results showed that there were 10 iconic species in group A,11 iconic species in group B,and 5 iconic species in group C.In conclusion,under the trial conditions,group B and group C could change the in-testinal microflora compositions,increase the species richness of bacterial community,and increase the rela-tive abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Phocaeicola,Bacteroides and Prevotella,and then improve the in-testinal health of Qiandongnan Xiaoxiang chickens.