Abstract
There is an increasing interest in free-range poultry with the increasing focus on food safety and animal welfare. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of grazing mixed-grass pastures on growth performance, immune responses, and intestinal microbiota in free-range laying chickens. Ten-week-old female Beijing-you chickens were blocked by the BW and randomly assigned to 3 free-range systems in poplar plantations for 120 d: forage-removed paddocks with a high stocking density of 5 m(2)/hen (control [CK]); mixed-grass pastures with a low stocking density of 6 m(2)/hen ;or mixed-grass pastures with a high stocking density of 5 m(2)/hen. Intestinal microbial community analysis was performed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing using Illumina MiSeq. The results revealed that no differences (P > 0.05) were found between the 3 raising systems for the BW and ADG. Chickens grazing mixed-grass pastures exhibited decreased (P > 0.05) mortality and improved immune responses as evidenced by increased T-lymphocyte proliferation (P > 0.05) and immunoglobulin A (P > 0.05) and immunoglobulin M concentrations (P < 0.05) compared with those raised in forage-removed paddocks. Metagenomic analysis indicated that grazing mixed-grass pastures regulated the intestinal microbiota by increasing the prevalence of beneficial bacteria, such as Lactobacillus, Bacteroides, and Faecalibacterium, and reducing potentially pathogenic bacteria population, such as the Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group compared with the CK. Therefore, this study indicated that grazing mixed-grass pastures could positively influence intestinal microbiota that may contribute to the overall growth and immunity of free-range chickens and that a low stocking density of 6 m(2)/hen was optimal to Beijing-you chickens grazing mixed-grass pastures.