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

加拿大绵羊生产主要受到出生后10天内发生的羔羊死亡的影响，据估计，安大略省每年的损失约为18万美元(每只羔羊约250美元)。早期生命中营养不足是幼年动物发病和死亡的主要原因之一，初乳是幼畜的主要营养来源。初乳中含有许多为羔羊提供被动免疫所必需的生物活性物质，以及引导后代正常发育的“友好”微生物。由于初乳质量部分取决于母体饮食，因此有可能优化母体饮食以提高初乳质量和羔羊健壮性。缺硒会损害生育能力，导致流产，并导致新生儿虚弱或出生后不久死亡。在妊娠晚期补充母亲饮食中的硒可以增加初乳中支持新生儿免疫的免疫球蛋白G(IgG)。然而，以前的研究强调，饮食中使用无机硒的效果不如有机来源，因为无机硒的吸收率较低。由于安大略省和加拿大土壤中的硒水平是不同的，这项研究对生产者来说是必要的，以制定一种策略来提高动物饲料中的硒水平。这项研究旨在通过改善初乳质量和被动转移初乳生物活性物质来增强羔羊的韧性，并通过在产前母羊日粮中添加有机硒来增加羔羊肠道微生物群的多样性。采用NextGen技术的尖端“组学”方法将被用来评估初乳质量、生物活性物质的被动转移和羔羊的微生物群多样性。这项多学科的研究将提高我们对初乳生物活性的理解，以及有机硒如何改善初乳质量和羔羊的整体生长并降低死亡率。该项目的受益者将是绵羊生产者，他们将受益于提高初乳质量和产后羔羊健壮性的经济营养战略，这将增加牛群的整体盈利能力和可持续性。此外，该项目将广泛描述绵羊初乳的特征，并提供对初乳生物活性的新见解，这些生物活性物质可能被开发为附加值产品。

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.