Abstract
The uprising demand of poultry products has led to an increase in the production of chickens. Nonetheless, this increase also gives way for an uprise in different types of issues such as food safety, human and animal health. While postharvest intervention strategies are considerably studied and established, preharvest food safety is considered more challenging. Therefore, anti-microbials like antibiotics are commonly used in poultry production to address and prevent contamination by pathogens. As a result of the many drawbacks associated with antibiotics, there is a growing demand for alternatives in animal production. Consequently, the use of bacteriophages in this field has been on the rise. This study highlights the effect of the application of the bacteriophage treatment FortiPhi-S on commercial poultry litter at different concentrations. The results demonstrate a significant difference by decreasing the richness of samples and increasing the diversity. The treatment also reduced the pathogenic families Staphylococcaceae and maintaining beneficial families such as Lachnospiraceae and Bacteroidaceae. Furthermore, pathogenic strains of Salmonella, Clostridia, and Escherichia-Shigella were significantly reduced or eliminated. The results demonstrated that the bacteriophage treatment FortiPhi-S has a significant effect on the microbial composition and diversity of poultry litter.