Chronic lead poisoning in steers eating silage contaminated with lead shot--diagnostic criteria.

Abstract

Lead ingestion is one of the most common causes of poisoning in cattle. Toxicity results most commonly from the consumption of a single high dose of lead although cumulative toxicity resulting from the ingestion of small doses over a prolonged time also occurs. The sources of lead most commonly involved in disease outbreaks are paint, batteries, felt, linoleum and oil. It has traditionally been held that ingested metallic lead does not present a major toxicity risk to cattle because of its low solubility in the rumen and reticulum. More recent evidence suggests that lead shot, if present in silage, can induce toxicity when such silage is eaten by cattle. This communication describes a poisoning outbreak in steers eating lead shot contaminated grass silage. It presents and discusses the limitations of the criteria used for arriving at a diagnosis, including the use of whole blood amino levulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) concentrations in fresh whole blood and after reactivation with dithiothreitol. Three are differences of opinion, in the literature, regarding the response of erythrocyte ALAD to ingested lead in the bovine. Consequently the results of a small lead feeding trial are also reported here. These results demonstrate a large ALAD response tomore » lead ingestion and justify the use of this test in the confirmation of field cases of lead poisoning in cattle such as the one reported here.« less