Abraha Negash*
The principal components of gut health includes diet, effective structure and function of the GIT barrier (gut mucosal), with effective digestion and absorption of feed and effective immune status of the host and normal and stable micro biota including bacteria, protozoa and fungal zoospores coexist to enable efficient fermentation, absorption and boosting immunity for better host performance demanding holistic considerations. Ruminant’s digestive fermentation results in fermentation end products of Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA), microbial protein and methane production in the rumen. The gut microbiota and their metabolic products also improve nutrient digestion, absorption, metabolism, and overall health and growth performance. Microbial feed supplements as natural growth promoters might play an important role for enhancement of health and productive performance serving in prevention of disease, enhancement of desirable microbial growth in the host environment, stabilization of gut and ruminal pH, altered ruminal fermentation patterns, increased nutrient digestibility and flow of nutrients to the small intestine, improved nutrient retention and reduced stress through enhanced immune response. The gut micro biome of livestock plays a crucial role in feed conversion. The fermentation products are influenced by the type of microbes present, the type of feed, and factors such as genetics and the age of the animal. Feed contributes most to livestock production costs. Improving feed efficiency is crucial to increase profitability and sustainability for animal production. Understanding these functions and interactions will help to develop new dietary and managerial strategies that will ultimately lead to enhanced feed utilization and improved growth performance of animals. Feed efficiency and high performance animals are the crucial goals in livestock farming to cope up the increasing demand driven live stock products.