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

加拿大的绵羊生产主要受到出生后10天内发生的羔羊死亡的影响，这在安大略省估计每年损失约为18万美元（约250美元/只）。早期营养不足是幼龄动物发病和死亡的主要原因之一，而初乳是幼龄动物的主要营养来源。初乳含有许多必需的生物活性物质，对羔羊提供被动免疫至关重要，并且“友好”微生物引导正常的后代发育。由于初乳品质部分取决于母羊日粮，因此有可能通过优化母羊日粮来提高初乳品质和羔羊健壮性。硒（Se）缺乏可损害生育能力，诱发流产，并导致新生儿虚弱或出生后不久死亡。妊娠后期母体饲粮中添加硒可增加初乳免疫球蛋白G (IgG)，支持新生儿免疫。然而，先前的研究强调，饮食中使用吸收较低的无机硒的效果不如有机硒。由于安大略省和加拿大土壤中的硒含量是可变的，因此这项研究对于生产者制定提高动物饲料中硒含量的策略至关重要。本研究旨在通过在产前母羊饲粮中添加有机硒，改善初乳质量和初乳生物活性物质的被动转移，增加羔羊肠道微生物群的多样性，从而提高羔羊的复原力。采用NextGen技术的尖端“组学”方法将用于评估羔羊初乳质量、生物活性物质的被动转移和微生物组多样性。这项跨学科的研究将提高我们对初乳生物活性的认识，以及有机硒如何改善初乳质量和羔羊的整体生长和降低死亡率。该项目的受益者将是羊生产者，他们将从提高初乳质量和产后羔羊健壮性的经济营养战略中受益，这将增加牧群的整体盈利能力和可持续性。此外，该项目将广泛表征羊初乳，并为初乳生物活性提供新的见解；可以开发为增值产品。

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.