Prevention of nutritional myopathy in sheep grazing selenium-deficient pastures

Abstract

The efficacy of oral or parenteral administrations of selenium to pregnant ewes grazing selenium-deficient pastures or lambs born to selenium-deficient ewes was tested. To prevent congenital and delayed forms of nutritional myopathy caused by selenium deficiency in lambs, a single i.m. injection of ewes with 0.056 mg Se/kg of body weight, 1 month prior to parturition prevented biochemical and clinical signs of selenium deficiency in newborn lambs until 1 month of age. Single oral dosages of selenium at 5-times the parenteral dose did not afford the protective blood concentrations of selenium and glutathione peroxidase that the single parenteral dosages achieved.