As expected, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) dominated the bacterial core in the ileum. The dominance of LAB in the porcine intestine has been shown in many studies (Sghir et al., 1998; Hill et al., 2005; Dowd et al., 2008; Pieper et al., 2008). In this study, their dominance was mainly due to Lactobacillus and Weissella species, more specifically L. reuteri, W. confusa, and W. cibaria. Oth- er LAB such as enterococci and streptococci were less