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A Study of the Function of Cobalt in the Nutrition of Sheep¹

New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station

G. H. Ellis and K. C. Beeson²

U. S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory

Abstract

The essentiality of cobalt in the diet of sheep has been proved by Underwood and Filmer (I935), Marston et al. (I938), Bowstead and Sackville (i939), Bowstead et el. (I94z), Pope et al. (1947), and by Keener et al. (I948). Numerous workers in this country and abroad also have identified cobalt deficiency m cattle. Little progress appears to have been made, however, in determining the function of cobalt in the diet of ruminants until Rickes et al. (1948) isolated vitamin B12 and found that it was a cobalt complex. Although the role of cobalt in vitamin B~ synthesis may not be the one which is involved in cobalt deficiency, this discovery apparently marks an important advance in determining the overall function of cobalt in animal nutrition.

It is believed generally that cobalt has an essential function in the production of some sort of appetite-stimulating factor by the flora of the rumen.

¹ Scientific Contribution No. 129 of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, Durham.

² The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following persons at the University of New Hampshire: Doctor F. E. Allen, Station Veterinarian, who made fecal examinations for parasites; Professor L. V. Tirrell, Head of the Department of Animal Husbandry, who provided part of the sheep; and Mr. A. D. Littlehale, Experiment Station Herdsman, who supervised the feeding and care of the experimental animals. The animal work was carried out by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. The U. S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory furnished the low-cobalt corn and made the cobalt analyses.