Cattle vitamin requirements

A completely independent study implicating the intestinal bacteria was that of Theiler and his associates (13) in ruminant animals. In the attempt to reproduce experimentally a South African paralytic disease known as lamzietke they fed cattle an experimental diet deficient in vitamin B and noted that evidences of deficiency failed to develop although pigeons on the same diet developed polyneuritis promptly. They assumed that either the vitamin requirement of cattle was extremely low or that it had been satisfied by bacterial synthesis in the intestinal tract the latter explanation seemed the more probable. 

The only species known definitely to require a dtetary source of vitamin C are man, monkeys and guinea pigs. It is possible that in mice, rabbits, swine and cattle vitamin C is required under certain conditions (45). A report by Philipps, et al. (133) indicates that dietary ascorbic acid is necessary for reproduction of cattle. These authors found that cows which had failed to reproduce conceived after injections of ascorbic acid. 

Pantothenic acid is found in extracts from nearly all plants, bacteria, and animals, and the name derives from the Greek pantos, meaning everywhere. It is required in the diet of all vertebrates, but some microorganisms produce it in the rumens of animals such as cattle and sheep. This vitamin is widely distributed in foods common to the human diet, and deficiencies are only observed in cases of severe malnutrition. The eminent German-born biochemist Fritz Lipmann was the first to show that a coenzyme was required to facilitate biological acetylation reactions. (The A in... 

The requirements of dairy cattle for B-vitamins, determined almost half a century ago, concluded that a ruminant animal does not require an exogenous supply of B-vitamins because its rumen microflora should synthesise enough of these compounds to avoid deficiency. Since then, dairy cows have greatly increased their average milk and milk component yields. More recent studies have shown that B-vitamin supply in dairy cows is increased by supplementation, although losses in the rumen are extensive (Santschi et al., 2005). Whilst there are few reports of B-vitamin supplementation affecting milk quality, supplemental biotin has been shown to directly improve milk yield (Majee et al., 2003). 

M. O. Schultze stated that cobalt is an essential element for the nutrition of sheep and cattle. Although it is not essential for the growth of the herbage plants, they nevertheless take it up from the soil and make it available for animal nutrition (106) To prevent anemia, even when the diet contains adequate amounts of iron, a small amount of cobalt (not more than four micrograms per day per kilogram of body weight of sheep) is required (124). It is an important constituent of vitamin B 2. 

The human body contains only about 1.5 mg of cobalt, almost all of it is in the form of cobalamin, vitamin B12. Ruminant animals, such as cattle and sheep, have a relatively high nutritional need for cobalt and in regions with a low soil cobalt content, such as Australia, cobalt deficiency in these animals is a serious problem. This need for cobalt largely reflects the high requirement of the microorganisms of the rumen (paunch) for vitamin B12. All bacteria require vitamin B12 but not all are able to synthesize it. For example, E. coli lacks one enzyme in the biosynthetic... 

In livestock and laboratory animals, a deficiency of vitamin E substances may cause degeneration of reproductive tissues, muscular dystrophy, encephalomalacia, and liver necrosis. Considerable research is required to fully determine supplementation of livestock diets unless typical symptoms of a deficiency appear. Symptoms have appeared where there are selenium deficiencies in the soil and where there are excessive levels of nitrates in the soil. White muscle 1 is the term used to describe a condition of muscular dystrophy in cattle. 

FIGURE 3.10 Structure of queuosine. Queuosine is incorporated into certain types of transfer RNA. The importance of queunosine to human health is not certain. A great quantity of compoimds are s)mthesized by the gut microflora, including vitamin B12, vitamin K, and biotin (a vitamin). In some cases, these sources of vitamin contribute to the nutritional requirements of the host animal. Essentially all of otir vitamin 612 is acquired from bacteria, but indirectly via meat. Beef cattle acquire their vitamin Bj2 from their gut bacteria, and people, in turn, acquire this vitamin from meat. 

The role of selenium in human medicine has been reviewed. Animal studies in the 1950s demonstrated the nutritionally beneficial, effects of selenium by showing that there was a selenium-responsive liver necrosis in vitamin E-deficient rats. There are important selenium-dependent diseases in farm animals, such as white muscle disease in sheep and cattle, and myopathy of cardiac and skeletal muscle in lambs and calves. In these animals, some cause of oxidative stress, such as increased physical activity or vitamin E deficiency—together witli dietary selenium deficiency—is required to elicit the disease. 

Ruminants require cobalt for the bacterial biosynthesis of vitamin B12 in the first stomach. Cobalt-deficient sheep or cattle show diminished feed intakes and weight loss. In cows, milk production declines and the fre-... 

For these reasons alone, a vitamin E symposium will not be short of problems and material for discussion. Many more unanswered questions come to light, however, when the biochemical and physiological properties of vitamin E are considered. The program of this meeting includes papers on the metabolism of vitamin E interrelations among vitamin E, metals, and ubi( uinones vitamin E and nucleic acid metabolism interrelations between vitamin E and polyunsaturated fatty acids vitamin E requirements of human infants vitamin E in health and disease of poultry, sheep, cattle, and pigs and so on. Everywhere, alongside established facts, there are unanswered questions and unsolved problems. 

The interrelations between vitamin E and selenium in cattle and sheep are undoubtedly as complex as they are in other species. It seems reasonable to state that vitamin E, in combatting the toxicity of unsaturated fat, acts as an antioxidant, for its effect can be duplicated by many other antioxidants and redox dyestuffs. Similarly it is indisputable that selenium is a dietar essential for ruminants and that its absence from their diet results in muscular disease. Both unsaturated fat excess and selenium deficiency must produce primary disturbances in the muscle cells. These disturbances need not be common to both, for muscle reacts similarly to a variety of biochemical insult. In the presence of selenium and the absence of unsaturated fat, vitamin E requirements of ruminants appear to be extremely small. The failure to produce reproductive disorders in ruminants by experimental vitamin E deficiency, and the failure to produce muscular disease on fat-free diets deficient in vitamin E but likely to have been adequate in selenium content is evidence of this contention. How vitamin E acts in preventing muscular disease due to selenium deficiency, however, is not known, and this aspect needs elucidation. 

C. has also been isolated in small amounts from plants, e. g. potato plants, from many pollens, isolated chloroplasts and from bacteria. It is a vitamin for many insects which require it as a precursor of ecdy-sone and related molting hormones. Commercially, C. is prepared from the spinal cords of cattle, or from wool grease. It was first synthesized chemically by Robinson and Woodward in 1951. For biosynthesis, see Terpenes. 

Although an excess of cobalt can be toxic to animals, there is a wide margin of safety between the nutritional requirement and the toxic level. Cobalt toxicosis is extremely unlikely to occur under practical farming conditions. Unlike copper, cobalt is poorly retained by the body tissues and an excess of the element is soon excreted. The toxic level of cobalt for cattle is 1 mg cobalt/kg body weight daily. Sheep are less susceptible to cobalt toxicosis than cattle and have been shown to tolerate levels up to 3.5 mg/kg. Excessive cobalt supplementation of ruminant diets can lead to the production of analogues of vitamin B12 and a reduction in the quantity of the true vitamin. Cobalt compounds pose a risk to human health as they cause cancer if inhaled and they irritate the skin for this reason, their use has been restricted in the... 

It is important to note that in these studies of vitamin E supplementation, it is the stability of oxymyoglobin that is improved. There does not appear to be any effect of vitamin E supplementation on the absolute concentration of myoglobin. In addition, consumers often associate discolored meat with a high microbial load. While meat color is not necessarily an adequate indicator of bacteriological quality (Faustman et al., 1990), Arnold et al. (1992a) have shown that bacterial growth on meat from vitamin E supplemented cattle is similar to that of meat from control animals. Thus, while the color stability of vitamin E supplemented beef may be improved, microbial growth is unaffected. The question of whether such enhanced color stability masks a natural deteriorative process must be addressed and requires further research. 

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