Effects of Dietary Supplementation With Clostridium butyricum on Growth Performance, Apparent Digestibility, Blood Metabolites, Ruminal Fermentation and Bacterial Communities of Fattening Goats

( ) is currently widely used to improve the body health and productive performance of monogastric animals. However, there have been few reports on the effects and specific mechanism of action of in ruminants. This study aimed to investigate the effects of supplementation on the growth performance and digestive microbiota of fattening goats. Twenty-four healthy male Albas goats (body weight = 22 ± 2.03 kg) were randomly divided into 3 treatment groups with eight goats in each group. The treatments were as follows: control group (CON) (basal diet, concentrate to forage ratio = 65:35); low-dose (LCB) (basal diet plus 2.0 × 10 CFU/kg ); and high-dose (HCB) (basal diet plus 1.0 × 10 CFU/kg ). The experiment lasted for 8 weeks after a 2-week adaptation period. Therefore, growth performance and rumen and rectum microbiota were evaluated in goats supplemented with and its metabolites. The results showed that dietary supplementation with significantly increased the pH ( < 0.05), but had no significant effect on growth performance ( > 0.05). Compared with the control group, dietary supplementation significantly increased the relative abundance of and ( < 0.05), and significantly decreased and ( < 0.05). The relative abundance of in the rumen was