Probiotic Improved Gut Health Performance of Meat Goats

The overarching goal of the project is to evaluate,validate and develop sustainable effective products that can be used to improve the health and perfomance of meat goats (profitability), improve meat quality and safetyconsequently offering alternatives to currently used antibiotics and antiparasitics. The mainr goalof the current project is to evaluateand elucidate the healthy benefits of probioticsadministration during the early neonatal period in improving the health of the growing meat goats, reducing prevalence ofmicrobial pathogens and parasites and improving the quality of the final meat product. Anotherproject goal is todocument the effect of probiotics on the overall gut microbial diversity in meat goats while alsooffering hands on opportunities and research skills experience for STEM students at Virginia State University. Five objectives will be implemented by the the project:i) Determine the effect of early probiotic supplementation in goat kids on overall health and immunityii) Evaluate the anti-parasitic efficacy of probiotic supplementation in goat kidsiii) Determine the effect of early probiotic supplementation on growth performance, final carcass quality and reduction of food safety pathogens in goat meativ) Evaluate effect of probiotic supplementation on gut microbial diversity using 16S sequencingv) Offer experiential learning to STEM/STEAM students