Effects of Dietary Supplementation With Clostridium butyricum on the Amelioration of Growth Performance, Rumen Fermentation, and Rumen Microbiota of Holstein Heifers

Abstract

In China, the use of antibiotics growth promoters as feed additives has been banned. The goal of raising dairy heifers is to gain a relatively high body weight on a high-fiber diet at first mating or calving, thus increasing economic benefits. The objective of this experiment was to explore the effects of supplemental Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum) on growth performance, rumen fermentation and microbiota, and blood parameters in Holstein heifers. Twenty Holstein heifers [mean ± standard deviation (SD); age = 182 ± 4.20 d, body weight = 197.53 ± 5.94 kg, dry matter intake (DMI) = 6.10 ± 0.38 kg] were randomly assigned to one of two diets group for a 42-day feeding period: (1) basal diet (an untreated control group, i.e., the CON group) or (2) basal diet plus daily 2 × 108 (colony-forming unit, CFU) of C. butyricum per kg of DMI per heifer (the CB group). The results demonstrated that C. butyricum supplementation increased the average daily gain from d 21 to 42 and DMI compared to the control group. Supplementation with C. butyricum significantly decreased the molar proportion of acetate and the acetate to propionate ratio but increased the molar proportion of butyrate and propionate. Compared with the control group, the relative abundance of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens, Ruminococcus albus, Ruminobacter amylophilus, Ruminococcus flavefaciens, and Streptococcus bovis increased during the trial period in the CB group. However, C. butyricum had no significant effect on the blood parameters in Holstein heifers. In conclusion, these results show that feeding C. butyricum can improve growth performance and rumen fermentation without any negative impact on blood parameters in Holstein heifers.

Effect of Clostridium butyricum Supplementation on in vitro Rumen Fermentation and Microbiota With High Grain Substrate Varying With Media pH Levels

“…Whereas, in the study of Cai et al ( 2021 ), both total VFA concentration and VFA profiles were increased by supplementing C. butyricum at 0.05% and 0.10% of the basal diet; the increased VFA concentration was due to increased in vitro rumen DMD. It is reported that as a butyrate producer, C. butyricum could produce short-chain fatty acids and nutritional factors such as enzymes (exo-pectate lyase, pectin methylesterase, and endo-pectate lyase) and vitamins (vitamins B and E), which would favor the activities of both cellulolytic and amylolytic bacteria, thereby improving rumen fermentability (Araki et al, 2002 ; Li et al, 2021 ). This may explain the trend of a greater molar proportion of acetate with supplemented C. butyricum at a low dose (0.5 × 10 6 CFU/bottle) than control at high media pH.…”

“…Moreover, the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes indicates the proportion of different VFA profiles in rumen such as propionate produced by Bacteroidetes (Paoli et al, 2019 ), which is consistent with the higher A:P ratio at media pH 6.6 than pH 6.0. Previous studies have demonstrated that C. butyricum could modulate the microbiota in the intestine of broiler chickens (Molnar et al, 2020 ), feces of weaned piglets (Zhang et al, 2018 ), or rumen of heifers (Li et al, 2021 ). Auffret et al ( 2017 ) reported that a high ratio of Proteobacteria to ( Firmicutes + Bacteroidetes ) was a good indicator for rumen dysbiosis.…”

“…Our results are also in agreement with other findings. Li et al ( 2021 ) reported that dietary supplementation of C. butyricum with 2 × 10 8 CFU/kg DM increased the molar proportions of propionate and butyrate and decreased the proportion of acetate without changing the total VFA concentration in the rumen of heifers. Whereas, in the study of Cai et al ( 2021 ), both total VFA concentration and VFA profiles were increased by supplementing C. butyricum at 0.05% and 0.10% of the basal diet; the increased VFA concentration was due to increased in vitro rumen DMD.…”

“…The possible mode of action may be attributed to the increase of secretion and activities of digestive enzymes in the intestine through the modulation of gut microbial composition or its production of butyric acid (Liu et al, 2017 ; Duan et al, 2018 ). In ruminants, a recent study suggested that C. butyricum inclusion improved ruminal fermentation and growth performance by increasing the abundance of rumen microbiota and molar proportion of propionate and butyrate of Holstein heifers (Li et al, 2021 ).…”

The gas production, ruminal fermentation parameters, and microbiota in response to Clostridium butyricum supplementation on in vitro varying with media pH levels

“…In addition, although the proportion of propionate quadratically changed after increasing the supplemented CB at both media pH levels, its differences among treatments were minimal from a biological perspective. Li et al (2021) in vivo) used in each study. Heat-stressed animals often decrease feed intake, which may positively affect fibre digestibility (i.e., an increase of acetate concentration) due to potentially longer rumen retention.…”