Effects of rearing environment on the gut antimicrobial responses of two broiler chicken lines.

To reduce the risk of enteric disease in poultry, knowledge of how bird gut innate defences mature with age while also responding to different rearing environments is necessary. In this study the gut innate responses of two phylogenetically distinct lines of poultry raised from hatch to 35days, in conditions mimicing high hygiene (HH) and low hygiene (LH) rearing environments, were compared. Analyses focussed on the proximal gut antimicrobial activities and the duodenal and caecal AvBD1, 4 and 10 defensin profiles.