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Urea and Sodium Bicarbonate Metabolism by Ruminants and by Ruminal Microorganisms^{1, 2,}

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig,⁵ Urbana 61801

Abstract

A SERIES of eight in vivo and eight in vitro experiments studied the metabolism of urea and sodium bicarbonate in sheep. Urea-¹⁴C and sodium ¹⁴C bicarbonate were injected intraruminally into sheep, and the recovery of radioactivity in the expired gases measured. Five hours after intraruminal infusion only 4.4 to 7.6% of the carbon from urea remained in blood plasma and rumen fluid. The maximum recovery of expired ¹⁴CO₂ from urea or sodium bicarbonate was 84.7% and 93.1% in 6 hours.

The results of the in vitro studies, in which urea-¹⁴C and sodium ¹⁴C bicarbonate were incubated with rumen fluid, and the produced CO₂ trapped and counted, support the findings of the in vivo experiments, that the hydrolysis of urea with the subsequent release of carbon dioxide is a rapid process. Alternate nonhydrolytic pathways of urea metabolism do not appear to be quantitatively important in the rumen.

¹ Supported in part by Federal Hatch 346.

² Data taken from thesis submitted by the senior author to the Graduate College, University of Illinois, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Ph.D. degree.

³ Present address: An Foras Taluntais, Dunsinea, Castle-knock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

⁴ Present address: Smith Kline and French Laboratories, 1600 Paoli Pike, Westchester, Pa.

⁵ Animal Science Department.