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Spectrophotometric examination of cattle blood for carotene and vitamin A

United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract

It is often a difficult task to determine the nutritional status of an animal by relying only on its general appearance or the development of definite clinical symptoms. This is particularly true under condi' tions where a multiple deficiency of essential nutrients may exist or when an animal is receiving a sub-optimal amount of some nutrient or nutrients, but yet receiving enough to markedly delay or prevent the development of typical deficiency symptoms. Furthermore, it may be unwise to allow animals, such as cattle, to develop definite symptoms of deficiency before attempting to correct the condition by supplementary feeding since irreparable damage to certain vital tissues may develop during the deficiency state.

In some investigations with regard to diseases or disorders resulting from nutritional deficiencies of cattle, special attention is being given to the quantitative measure of vitamin A deficiency and optimum vitamin A nutrition by the determination of ß-carotene and possibly vitamin A in the blood of these cattle.