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The effect of lead on the rate of fermentation of herbage by rumen micro-organisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

S. T. Strojan  and
C. J. C. Phillips
S. T. Strojan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Cambridge, CB3 OES
C. J. C. Phillips
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Cambridge, CB3 OES
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Extract

Lead from car exhausts persists on roadside verges, and ruminants grazing close to a busy road are likely to consume contaminated herbage. However, cattle can detect lead on herbage when it is at concentrations of 170 mg Pb/kg DM or above and have been observed to avoid grazing pasture with 304 and 462 mg Pb/kg DM (Strojan and Phillips, 1997). Herbage 7.5 m from a busy dual carriageway has been recorded with 454 mg Pb/kg DM (Motto et al., 1970).

The avoidance of lead-contaminated herbage may be the result of low digestibility of the leadcontaminated herbage, so the digestion rate of samples of herbage from the experiments of Strojan and Phillips (1997), referred to in the Introduction, was determined by the gas production technique (Menke and Steingass, 1988). Using 15 and 10 replicates/treatment from two experiments where lead acetate was sprayed onto cut (Experiment 1) and grazed (Experiment 2) herbage, 200 mg DM of each herbage sample was incubated in sheep rumen liquor in syringe pipettes.

Type
Programme
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science , Volume 1999 , 1999 , pp. 153
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 1999

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References

Strojan, S.T. and Phillips, C.J.C. 1997. The detection and avoidance of lead contaminated pasture by cattle. Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science, 1997, p.148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menke, K. H. and Steingass, H. 1988. Estimation of the energetic feed value obtained from chemical analysis and in vitro gas production using rumen fluid., Animal Research and Development 28: 7 Google Scholar
Motto, H.L., Daines, R.H., Chilko, D.M. and Motto, C.K. 1970. Lead in soils and plants: its relationship to traffic volume and proximity to highways. Environmental Science and Technology 4: 232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar