Establishing a healthy gut microbiome from the beginning of a calf’s life can have a lasting impact on her success. A properly developed gut can help improve lifetime feed efficiency and support overall calf health. You see, the gut is the first line of defense for a calf’s immune system, which can protect her from scours, pneumonia and other health challenges.

Increasing consumer pressure to reduce or eliminate the use of antibiotics continues to motivate livestock producers to evaluate novel feed additives that offer health and production benefits but do not require veterinary oversight.

We often see ads promoting the benefits of probiotics in a variety of products targeted toward humans and animals. However, ads typically generalize the benefits of probiotics – intertwining nutrition and managing health as research shows how changing diet can have major health benefits.

Probiotics have become more popular with consumers in recent years. In the past, probiotics were only associated with foods such as yogurt, but as probiotics become more readily available to us in so many forms, education regarding the benefit of probiotics have driven researchers to dig deeper into the function of good bacteria.