The Effect of Gender on the Bacterial Community in the Gastrointestinal Tract of Broilers

The effect of gender on the growth, carcass yield, and nutritional requirements of chickens has been well documented, but little is known about how the sex of a chicken affects the bacterial population of the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, our objective was to evaluate the biodiversity of the bacterial community in the gastrointestinal tract of male and female broilers. An experiment was conducted with Cobb 500 broiler chicks that were vent sexed at 0 d of age and allocated to 8 pens of 25 chicks per gender. All birds were fed a nonmedicated corn-soybean meal starter diet from 0 to 21 d of age. At 3, 7, 14, and 21 d of age, chicks were randomly selected and ileums were taken for bacterial sampling. Bacterial DNA was isolated from the digesta of the ileum, and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was used to examine PCR-amplified fragments of 16S ribosomal DNA. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analyses revealed that the bacterial communities separated into 2 gender-specific groups, with less than 30% similarity between populations. Furthermore, as the birds aged, the similarity of the intestinal bacterial community decreased within each gender. Although ileal bacterial population differences within and between genders were noted as early as d 3, differences in growth rate between males and females were not noted until d 21 (data not shown). This suggested that non-growth-related factors influenced the composition of intestinal bacterial communities.