Impact of incorporating hydrolysed feather meal on the microbiota of dogs across different time points

This study aimed to investigate the effects of substituting 7% of poultry meat (CTR) with hydrolyzed feather meal (HFM) into the diets of female dogs on their microbiota composition after 15 days of adaptation (T0) and after 3, 7, 15 and 45 days (T3, T7, T15 and T45). Rarefaction curve analysis indicated optimal sequencing depth, evidenced by the asymptotic curve of the number of Amplicon Sequence Variants. Alpha diversity analysis revealed no significant differences between diets (CTR vs. HFM) and in relation to the Diet x Times interaction. Evenness analysis, reflecting both richness and relative abundance of taxa, showed higher values (P<0.01) in the HFM compared to the CTR diet. Diet x Time interaction depicted a higher and more homogeneous evenness value among subjects at time D0 of the CTR diet. The weighted unifrac distance matrix, related to the beta diversity, did not show significant difference between diets, with the CTR diet exhibiting a numerically higher value than the HFM diet. Our findings suggested that incorporating HFM into the diets of dogs have mild effects on their microbiota composition and that the hyrdolized feather meal can safely substitute animal meat.