Make Microbiomes Work For You: These days it’s hard to talk about nutrition and not mention the term “microbiome.” But what exactly is the microbiome? Keep reading to learn more. And, don’t forget to sign up for a free nutritional consultation today to find out how we can optimize your animals microbiome and make the bugs work for you.
Microbiomes in Cows
Have you ever considered the science behind how feed is digested? It’s all about the bugs. It all starts with the microbes, or bugs, inside of the cows’ rumen. These microbes include protozoa, bacteria, and fungi. They add up to more than a quadrillion rumen microbes per cow. Now, that’s a lot of bugs.
Each type of microbe plays a critical role. Let’s break it down further. Bacteria carry out most of the digestion of sugars, starch, fiber, and protein for the cow. Protozoa swallow and digest bacteria, starch granules, and fiber. And fungi open up plant fibers to make them more easily digestible. It might be hard to digest what these roles actually mean, but it’s pretty simple.
Cows don’t have the enzymes to digest the fiber they eat, so rumen microbes work together to turn forage into energy and protein that cows can use. These bugs are needed to digest feed and produce volatile fatty acids, or VFAs, which are used by the cow as energy. This energy is used for maintenance, growth, lactation, and reproduction, making these tiny bugs a very big deal.
Rumen Microbiomes
But rumen microbes don’t thrive on their own. The nutrition you provide cows can help maintain an optimal rumen pH, which helps microbes flourish. An ideal rumen pH also helps cows have optimal digestion. Let’s look at what can happen in ideal and less-than-ideal rumen conditions. In a healthy rumen, the stomach has a good population of microbes, and those microbes are active.
Microbes perform their best when there’s a consistent supply of nutrition, which maintains a consistent rumen pH. When nutrition doesn’t supply the nutrients needed for the microbe population to thrive, microbes become less active and less efficient, if they function at all. This can happen with abrupt diet changes, inconsistent nutrition, and drops in rumen pH.
The bottom line is, what and how you feed your cows affects which microbes grow, how the feed is utilized, and the nutrients available to the cow. One way to bridge the gap and provide the nutrients microbes need to flourish is providing your cows with Purina® Accuration® supplement, available in block, tub, liquid and meal forms. It helps provide the consistent nutrition needed to achieve a desirable rumen environment, and maintain a consistent body condition score.
A consistent body condition score can lead to cows breeding back quickly, optimize conception rates, and calf weaning weights. Next time you think about your herd’s nutrition, think from the inside out. It’s all about the bugs. Think about feeding rumen microbes, which fuel digestion, nutrient utilization, and ultimately, a productive cow.
That’s greatness you can see. Purina® Accuration® with Intake Modifying Technology® is one of many proven flexible solutions available through the Purina® All Seasons™ Cattle Nutrition Program. The program covers every life stage and every season. Unlock the greatest potential of your cattle from the inside out, feed greatness.
Microbiomes in Horses
At Purina, we are most interested in the microbiome of the equine gastrointestinal tract. But, every part of your horse has its own unique microbiome. Each individual “bug” in a microbiome plays a specific role. It is because of their combined efforts that the horse can survive and thrive.
The gastrointestinal microbiome of the horse is dictated by a variety of factors including diet, age, metabolic status, activity level, pregnancy status, and disease state. Interestingly, we have also learned that the development of the microbiome occurs early in the life of a foal. Quickly following foaling, the microbial foundation is built along a specific blueprint that is influenced by its environment and its mother. As the foal ages, more pieces of the blueprint are filled in. Research from the Purina Animal Nutrition Center has shown that early in the life of the foal, the fecal microbiome is drastically different from that of its mother. However, in a very short time, the microbial profiles are similar between mare and foal pairs.
Microbes turn feed into fuel for horses
It is well established that a horse’s diet provides the nutrients necessary to support maintenance of essential bodily functions. That, along with growth and performance. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is uniquely designed to harvest essential nutrients from the diet. However, without the microbiome, indispensable nutrients would fail to be extracted and certain feedstuffs would pass through unused. Each segment of the horse’s GI tract (from mouth to anus) maintains a specific microbial ecology. The workhorses of the microbiome reside in the large intestine (cecum and large colon) of the horse. The microbes present there are primarily tasked with the fermentation of fiber or structural carbohydrates (cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin and lignin) into short-chain fatty acids (acetate, propionate, and butyrate), sometimes referred to as volatile fatty acids or VFA’s. These fatty acids are utilized by the horse as an energy source and supply up to 60-70% of their basal energy requirements.
Not just about digestion
Research has shown that every part of the horse’s GI tract has a microbiome characterized by a specific population of microorganisms. As more research has been conducted, the link between the microbiome and health has become increasingly apparent. Changes in the microbiome have been linked to health issues like laminitis, equine metabolic syndrome, colitis, colic and inflammatory bowel disease. Even more surprising has been the identification of elaborate communication pathways between the host (your horse) and the microbes in its gut. This communication is evident by the role that the microbiome plays in immune function, inflammation, and even cognitive function and behavior.
The gastrointestinal microbiome of every horse is unique to them. The microbiome is as unique as a fingerprint, or the whorl on your horse’s head. While unique, it is also dynamic. The factors that drive the development of the microbiome (diet, age, metabolic status, activity level, pregnancy status and disease state) change, so too does the relative population of the microbes that make up this diverse ecosystem. It makes sense then, that the ideal microbiome for one horse may be inappropriate for another horse. That’s why it is so important to learn as much as we can about what is normal (and abnormal) before we can expect to influence the microbiome in a meaningful way through nutrition.
Sign up for a free nutritional consultation find out how we Make Microbiomes Work For You.
Article source: Purina
