Pig feces Metagenome
Botanicals, such as herbs, are often supplemented in diets for pigs to support the gut homeostasis and digestive processes especially after weaning. Fermentation can improve the bioavailability of the bioactive compounds in plants and potentiate their effect on the host. Part of the objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of a fermented herbal extract on the fecal microbiota composition under commercial production conditions on three pig farms throughout the rearing and fattening period. Fecal samples from rearing and growing pigs at several time points. Total DNA was isolated using a commercial kit and sequenced using Illumina chemistry. The V3-V4 hypervariable regions of bacterial 16S rRNA gene were amplified using a 250 bp read length paired-end protocol (Microsynth AG) on an Illumina MiSeq platform, including the library preparation (Nextera Library Prep Kit) and sequencing.