Impact of Maternal Diet on Small Ruminant Colostrum Bioactives and Postnatal Health

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Canadian sheep production is majorly hampered by lamb mortalities that occur within 10 days of birth, which amounts to an estimated annual loss of approximately $180,000/year (~$250/lamb) in Ontario. Insufficient availability of nutrients during early life is one of the main causes of young animal morbidity and mortality, where colostrum is their main nutrient source. Colostrum contains many essential bioactives crucial for providing passive immunity to lambs, and "friendly" microbes that steer normal offspring development. Since colostrum quality is partially determined by maternal diet, there is potential to optimize maternal diet to improve colostrum quality and lamb robustness. Deficiency of Selenium (Se) can impair fertility, induce abortions, and lead to neonatal weakness or death shortly after birth. Supplementation of maternal diets with Se during late pregnancy can increase colostrum immunoglobulin G (IgG) that supports neonatal immunity. However, previous studies emphasize that dietary use of inorganic Se, which has lower absorption, is less effective than organic sources. Since Se levels are variable in soils across Ontario and Canada, this study is imperative for producers to have a strategy to enhance Se levels in animal feed. The proposed research aims to enhance lamb resilience by improving colostrum quality and passive transfer of colostrum bioactives and increasing the diversity of the lamb gut microbiome by the inclusion of organic Se in pre-partum ewe diets. A cutting-edge "omics" approach employing NextGen techniques will be employed to assess colostrum quality, passive transfer of bioactives and microbiome diversity in lambs. This multidisciplinary study will improve our understanding of colostrum bioactives and how organic Se improves colostrum quality and overall growth of lambs & reduces mortality. Beneficiaries of this project will be sheep producers, who will benefit from having an economical nutritional strategy to improve colostrum quality and postnatal lamb robustness that will add to the overall profitability and sustainability of herds. Additionally, this project will extensively characterize ovine colostrum and provide new insights into colostrum bioactives; which may be developed as value-added products.