Effect of Nitrate or Nitrite Administered Continuously in Drinking Water for Swine and Sheep

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Abstract
Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of drinking water containing added sodium nitrate or nitrite on growing-finishing pigs, gilts from weaning through two farrowing seasons and lambs during a growing-fattening period. Levels of sodium nitrate providing up to 300 ppm NO3-N in the drinking water had no adverse effect on weight gain, general thriftiness, or breeding and reproductive performance in swine. Adding sodium nitrite to drinking water to provide up to 100 ppm NO2-N for swine gave measurable but small increases in methemoglobin at the higher levels of nitrite without obvious detrimental effect on performance or liver vitamin A values determined after 105 days on treatment. In sheep 1000 ppm NO3-N in the drinking water gave a peak methemoglobin level amounting to 16% of total hemoglobin. Average methemoglobin levels of lambs receiving 667 or 333 ppm NO3-N never exceeded 5.3% of total hemoglobin during the 84-day trial. None of the nitrate treatments adversely affected performance of the lambs. No evidence was obtained to indicate that consumption of water containing 300 ppm or less of NO3-N was detrimental to swine or sheep. Copyright © 1965. American Society of Animal Science . Copyright 1965 by American Society of Animal Science