Rebecca Quesnell
Cornell University, USA
Title: Building the microbiota across species: Challenges and solutions
Biography
Biography: Rebecca Quesnell
Abstract
Review: university and independent research was designed to document responses of delivering fermented, stabilized, inactivated cultured bacteria (CULBAC) to animals. Investigations were completed with the objective of solving specific problems in feeding and management of various livestock species, including monogastric and ruminant.
Ruminants experience unique digestive challenges centered on microbial balance. Cattle fed CULBAC demonstrated improved fermentation in rumen during shipping stress (reflected by pH and VFA production); lowered fecal coliform concentration; decreased death rate to 5.15% from a 10.3% death rate among control calves; increased ruminal bacterial count and diversity, milk yield, milk fat and protein; and lowered milk somatic cell count and use of medicated interventions in dairy cattle. Ruminant nutritionists conducted digestion studies in-vitro in sheep rumen and in-vivo in lambs showing decreased methane production and increased propionic acid production and digestibility (8% to more than 21%) of low- and high-fiber diets with CULBAC exposure.
Research in monogastric animals demonstrated improved feed-to-gain ratio, feed efficiency, and a significant improvement in dietary fiber digestibility in growing swine, and decreased incidence and severity of scours (P<.05) in response to dietary levels of CULBAC. Studies recorded CULBAC-assisted rates of weight gain 14.1% better and feed conversions 11.3% better than in untreated pigs. Japanese researchers found that newborn pigs given CULBAC had increased weight gain, 71% greater increase in the amount of IgA in their intestinal walls, decreased incidence of scours and coliform counts in the cardiac region of the stomach compared with pigs not treated with CULBAC