Heat Stress and Cultivable Intestinal Bacteria of Lehmann Brown Hens

Abstract

The use of genetic methods seems to have briefly pushed back the use of culture methods. Currently, a new technique developed based on the latter – culturomics, enables the discovery and study of expanded bacterial diversity using a large number of culture conditions and media. This study aims to investigate the influence of heat shock on the qualitative and quantitative content of cultivable gut bacteria of Lehmann Brown chickens from the “Arax” chicken factory.The chickens (5 months old, weighing 1.4-1.7 kg) of the “Arax” poultry factory in Armenia were transferred to a sterilized test room with the necessary conditions. After four days of maintenance in a new environment (temperature 25 0C), fecal samples were taken from the hens. After that, the hens were kept at 35 0 C for a day, followed by another sampling conducted a day later. The current investigations have emphasized that the bacterial number and diversity of hen gut microbiota undergo changes under the influence of heat stress.