Diet and Muscular Disease in Calves

Abstract

During the early stages of investigations concerned with the dietary requirement of dairy calves for certain amino-acids (Blaxter & Wood, 1952a), we had occasion to devise rations simulating milk to meet the calves’ basic requirements. These consisted of reconstituted dried skim-milk powder, glucose, trace elements, lard as a source of fat and a concentrated solution of vitamins A and D in arachis oil. The diet was comparatively cheap and the growth of the calves which were given it appeared quite satisfactory, at least for the first month. Then, quite suddenly, some animals developed alarming symptoms of muscular and cardiac derangement and some died. Examination of the calves at post mortem showed the presence of muscular degeneration which appeared comparable to a similar type of degeneration which had been observed in guinea-pigs and rabbits given rations low in vitamin E content (Goettsch & Pappenheimer, 1931). The ration which we had been giving to the calves contained only a few milligrams of vitamin E, since experiments in America had suggested that E deficiency in cattle took several years to produce (Gullickson & Calverley, 1946).