STUDIES WITH A DEFICIENT RATION FOR SHEEP: I. EFFECT OF VARIOUS SUPPLEMENTS: II. EFFECT OF A COBALT SUPPLEMENT

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Abstract
Sheep became unthrifty when fed non-leguminous hays and ground oats over a period of seven months. Numerous feed and mineral supplements were fed in an endeavour to prevent the development of the unthrifty symptoms as well as to determine the nutrient or nutrients lacking in the deficient ration. Pasture, calcium and phosphorus, cod liver oil, tankage, linseed meal, bran, and alfalfa meal, when fed as supplements, delayed the appearance of unthriftiness. The feeding of iron and copper proved detrimental. Wheat germ meal did not improve conditions. Alfalfa ash proved to be the best of all the supplements studied in the maintenance of normal thrift. The beneficial effect of alfalfa ash indicated that the deficiency of the non-leguminous ration that caused unthriftiness was one or more of the minerals that were present in the alfalfa hay.When cobalt was fed as a supplement to a few ewes that had developed the characteristic symptoms of unthriftiness, there followed a rapid increase in weight and improvement in thrift. Chemical analyses of various hays, alfalfa ash, and soil snowed that the non-leguminous hays contained only small quantities of cobalt, similar to the amounts contained in New Zealand grass that caused similar symptoms to develop. Alfalfa hay grown on similar soil contained relatively large amounts of cobalt, whereas alfalfa hay grown in the Lethbridge district contained only small amounts of cobalt. The writers suggest that a cobalt problem may exist in Western Canada.

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