Abstract

PAEZ, Paola Andrea; CAMPOS GAONA, Rómulo  and  GIRALDO PATINO, Leonidas. Supplementation and iron metabolism in bovine calfs in tropical conditions. Acta Agron. [online]. 2013, vol.62, n.1, pp.59-65. ISSN 0120-2812.

72 calves were selected in growth phase which belonged to three breeds groups, two of origin Bos taurus and one of origin Bos indicus. Three treatments were subjected in each one of breeds (8 animals per group), one group was injected with 500 mg of Iron Dextran (intramuscularly), and the other was 100 mg oral Spirulina and a third was defined as the control group. The main idea of this research was study metabolism dynamics in hematic and iron under the effect of two supplements. The experimental period lasted the first six months of life of the calves. Samples for hematic analysis were collected by jugular venipuncture technique in vacutainer tubes with anticoagulant (EDTA) and others tubes without it. Using commercial reagents for specific colorimetric techniques for serum iron and hemoglobin were analyzed. Total protein was analyzed by direct reading refractometer. The average of weight gain was 509 ± 0.40 g/d. Cell count showed 16059.96 leukocytes by mm³. Hemoglobin showed value of 12.11g/dl ± 2.8 whereas the hematocrit had a value of 38.40 % ± 7.6 and the corpuscular hemoglobin concentration showed a mean value of 31.62% ± 4.7. Serum protein showed a mean value of 5.55 g/dl ± 0.7 and the serum iron mean value was 18.70 µmol/L ± 11.8. Statistical analysis of variance showed that the month factor sampling and the breed factor of all analyzed metabolites showed significant differences for serum levels, whereas the treatment factor of showed statistical differences only mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration values.

Keywords : Calves; complete blood count; growth; mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration; Serum iron; total protein.

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