Screening and selection of lactic acid bacteria from calves for designing a species-specific probiotic supplement

Probiotic supplementation to animal feeds has become a standard practice in the feed industry especially since European Union banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize mainly lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from calves, that can be used as feed additive. For this purpose, bacterial strains were recovered from calf faecal samples and characterized using MicroLog™ system, 16s rRNA gene sequencing and Riboprinter™ system. Major representative strains were evaluated for their potential probiotic activity in vitro. Of 145 strains isolated, 3 clonal strains were selected for their potential probiotic activity, namely Lactobacillus animalis DUP5009, Lactobacillus paracasei ssp. paracasei DUP13077 and Bacillus coagulans RiboGroup 189-444-S-1. In light of this result these clonal strains can be considered for develop new probiotic products for calves.