Cobalt deficiency in sheep

In a sense, in a country such as Scotland, where marginal cobalt deficiency in sheep is widespread in many areas, contamination of pasture soils with cobalt may well be beneficial to grazing stock, for additional cobalt will be taken up by herbage, as is cobalt deliberately applied to the land for therapeutic reasons [75]. Dressings of 2-5 kg/ha are usually sufficient to prevent the occurrence of pining or sub-clinical cobalt deficiency on deficient pastures for several years, but there should be no need to make such applications to fields within, or adjoining, conurbations. Unfortunately, the approximately twofold enhancement of available soil cobalt levels which is now typical of soils in urban areas (Table 7) is invariably accompanied by contamination with all the other elements now known to be common urban contaminants and any effects from these are likely to be deleterious. 

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