Game domestication for animal production in Kenya: prediction of water intake from tritiated water turnover

Abstract

SummaryFive male animals of each of the following species, zebu, eland, small East African goat, fringe-eared oryx and Dorper sheep, were penned, and their water intake measured and metabolic water production estimated. The figures for water input were compared with simultaneous measurements of body-water turnover by liquid scintillation counting of tritiated water in plasma, following dioxane precipitation. It was found that the resultant regression was sufficiently linear with the intercept near zero to justify the use of a ratio to predict input from turnover. The tritiated water turnover overestimated the water input by an amount approximately equal to the overestimate of the body water pool by the tritiated water space. Although there was a considerable amount of variation in individual ratios which could not be explained, there was no significant difference in the mean ratios between species.