Association between weaning stress and rumen microbiota in goat kids: evidence from granger causality and randomized...

Although there is some evidence linking weaning stress to altered gut flora and stunted development, the exact nature of this relationship is still up for debate.

In this study, we employed Granger causality inference to compare the dynamic changes in gastrointestinal microbiota between stressed and non-stressed goat kids, and we validated our findings through a randomized controlled trial involving rumen microbiota transplantation.

Our findings indicated that the alpha diversity and microbial maturity of the rumen microbiota in stressed kids were significantly lower than those in non-stressed kids during the weaning period (p<0.05). Furthermore, the rumen microbiota at pre-weaning could accurately predict the body weight changes during weaning stress period (R2 = 0.99, root-mean-square error of prediction = 0.19). We found that the majority of high-abundance rumen bacteria (89.22%) were retained by the cultured rumen microbiota, and that transplanting this microbiota successfully changed the rumen microbiota (analysis of similarity of microbiota, p<0.05), improved growth performance (p<0.05) during weaning, and enhanced microbial maturity (p<0.05), but had no effect on the gut microbiota (p>0.05). Additionally, transplantation of the cultured rumen microbiota reduced intestinal permeability and inflammation while increasing antioxidant levels in weaned kids (p<0.05).

These findings provide evidence for the association between rumen microbiota and weaning stress, demonstrating that manipulating rumen microbiota is an effective strategy for alleviating weaning stress in goat kids.