Chicks INRAE
Exploraty project EggToMeat (2021 - 2024)

EggToMeat - Proof of concept and construction of a project to identify the impact of farming parameters on bacterial flux in the production of broilers

The EggToMeat project aims at identifying the impact of farming parameters on the flux of microbiota along the chicken production chain, from eggs to carcasses. For that purpose, two housing conditions (indoors vs outdoor range) will be compared on a single batch of embryonated eggs.

Context and challenges

Poultry meat is the most consumed meat in the world and the second most consumed meat in France. In addition, the health, animal welfare and productivity of broilers, as well as the microbial safety of meat cuts and the demand for healthy food are important societal issues. These issues are driving changes in poultry farming practices, which raises the question of the influence of these farming practices.

Microbial communities in broilers, mainly those in the digestive tract, have been widely described, as well as their influence on nutrition, physiology and immunity of chickens. However, these studies have only covered part of the production chain.

Goals

Our objective is to evaluate the impact of chicken rearing parameters on bacterial flux throughout the broiler production chain. In this exploratory project, we will analyse the composition of the microbiota from the egg shell to the carcass and study the impact of rearing conditions (indoor or outdoor access) on chick colonisation, on the dynamics and formation of the microbiota during rearing and on the composition of the bacterial contamination of the carcass. These data will be compared with zootechnical parameters in order to detect potential levers for improving the health and robustness of the animals by engineering the microbiota.

INRAE partners

Unit / Team

Department

Expertise

SECALIM

SECALIM

MICALIS

FME, CPE, B3D,ISP, SPVB, PGBA, CIRM-BP

MICA

Microbiota, meat quality, Campylobacter

Microbiota, NGS, statistics, multivariate

Intestinal pathobionts

Chicken environmental microbiota, Microbiota steering

Microbiota antibioresistance

Biological resources center, biobanking, collection of microorganisms

Microbiota steering, immunomodulation

MAIAGE 

DYNENVIE, MIGALE

MAIAGE 

STATINFOMICS

MATHNUM

Modeling in microbial ecology

Bioinformatics

Multivariate analysis

BOA

MOQA, AliSE, AQSel

EASM

GABI

PHASE

Animal physiology, meat quality

Animal physiology, gut health

Microbiota analysis

Animal physiology, gut health

Experimental unit

Chicken microbiota, Metachick data, chicken health

Non INRAE partners

laboratory

Expertise

BIRD/ITAV (Tours Nouzilly)

Technical center, poultry sector

 

Contact - Coordination :

Modification date: 04 September 2024 | Publication date: 08 December 2021 | By: Com, DC