Animal intestinal microbiota is one of the rich reservoirs of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes, contributing to the spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment and potentially into human pathogens. Both culture-based genomic technology and culture-independent metagenomics have been developed to investigate the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes. The characteristics, strengths, limitations and challenges of these genomic approaches are discussed in this review under the context of antibiotic resistance in animals. In addition, we discuss the advances in single-cell genomics and its potentials for surveillance of antibiotic resistance in animals.