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Comparison of the ⁵¹CrCl₃ Ratio and Total Collection Techniques in Digestibility Studies with a Wild Ruminant, the White-Tailed Deer¹

University of New Hampshire, Durham 03824^{2, 3,}

Abstract

The use of a radioactive substance as an inert food marker in nutritional studies has many advantages over stable indicators such as Cr₂,O₃, Fe₂O₃, stained particles, or beads. Radioisotopes can eliminate much of the time and labor involved in fecal analyses; however, until very recently they have been used only to a limited extent as food labels. Radioactive barium was used in digestive studies of the domestic fowl (Imabayshi, Kametaka and Hatano, 1956) and Brandt and Thacker (1958) employed radioactive chromic oxide to study coprophagy in rabbits. Using ⁵¹CrCl₃ Petrides (1968) studied digestive phenomena in several wild animal species. Additional work with this isotope has been carried out with several avian species (Duke, 1967; Inman, Petrides and Ringer, 1969).

There are several factors which make ⁵¹Cr an ideal isotope for digestion studies. Its halflife of 27.8 days is neither inconveniently short nor dangerously long. The physical, chemical or spectrophotometric analyses required with stable compounds is eliminated since ⁵¹Cr disintegrates with the emission of gamma rays allowing its ready detection and quantification.

¹ Research conducted at Michigan State University and supported by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission under contract No. AT(11-1)—1934.

² Published with the approval of the Director of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station as Scientific Contribution No. 554.

³ The author is indebted to G. A. Petrides and D. E. Ullrey, Michigan State University, who provided many helpful suggestions throughout this study.