Greater resistance to infectious diseases
through improved immune status
What are Probiotics?
Probiotics are cultures of live good microorganisms which, after ingestion, can lead to health benefits and other positive outcomes for the animal or human consuming them.
Health benefits will depend very much on the type and strain of probiotic microorganism being administered, but current applications are predominantly to help prevent undesirable or pathogenic microorganisms from establishing in the gut of animals and to help boost the host’s immune system. It should be noted that probiotics may consist of a mix of different microorganism types and/or strains.
The concept of using “good” microorganisms for beneficial outcomes is not new. Probiotic microorganisms have been used in the food industry for a long time. Eg. yeasts to produce beer or bacterial cultures to make cheese and yoghurt. Such food cultures, besides being crucial in food production, also benefit the person eating them.
Why use Probiotics?
Probiotics are used to boost the natural microorganism populations in the rumen or gut. Where an animal experiences any form of stress, it will impact on the viability of its microorganism population in the gut or rumen and a probiotic consisting of the right microorganism or cocktail of microorganisms may lead to beneficial outcomes in terms of animal health and performance.
Animals, young and old, can be stressed for a variety of reasons, such as:
- Exposure to adverse weather conditions, incl. cold and heat stress
- Malnutrition, through under feeding or deficiency of certain nutrients (e.g. mineral deficiencies due to inadequate soil levels with grazing animals)
- Sudden changes in diet composition
- High grain diets that lead to low rumen pH levels
- Re-grouping animals (requiring establishment of new group hierarchy)
- Exposure to external and internal parasites and infectious diseases
- Transport over a long distance
- Weaning (separation from the mother)
- Overcrowding in pens or pastures
- Feeding insufficient amounts of colostrum or poor-quality colostrum to calves
- Diets lacking in physically effective fibre that may lead to low rumen pH (e.g. feeding high levels of PKE during pasture deficits)
- Stage of lactation – early lactation cows are in negative energy-balance, and have suppressed immune function