COBALT DEFICIENCY DISEASE IN YOUNG SHEEP

Authors

  • E.D. Andrews

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33584/jnzg.1955.17.1045

Abstract

Since Australian workers demonstrated the essentiality of dietary cobalt some 20 years ago great progress has been made in the diagnosis and, control of a wasting disease of cattle and sheep now known to be due to a deficiency of cobalt in feed. In New Zealand the routine examination of animal livers for cobalt content has, with reservations to be discussed, proved a useful diagnostic aid. It has been shown that cobalt deficiency disease is usually assocliated with specific soil types low in cobalt, and so it has been possible to define cobalt deficient areas in broad outline (Fig. 1). Areas are defined in terms of cobalt available from the soil through the plant to the animal. The following criteria are used. Severe Deficiency: Prior to the advent of cobalt supplementation, sheep of all ages, and in places cattle, sickened and died. Mild to Moderate Deficiency: Mainly young sheep affected, but at times and in places mature sheep possibly unthrifty to a mild degree. Marginal or Suspected Deficiency: At times and in places young sheep may develop cobalt deficiency disease. Areas distinguished on the map are necessarily arbitrarily defined. For example land classified as mildly to moderately deficient will include areas where cobalt deficiency is at best only suspected; at present much of the land tentatively classified as marginally or suspected deficient is probably healthy.

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Published

1955-01-01

Issue

Section

Articles