Effects of selenium and copper supplementation on the growth of beef steers

Abstract

During the grazing seasons of 1978 and 1979, 126 Hereford cross Friesian and 25 Charolais cross Friesian steers were used in controlled trials of the effects of injecting them with copper and, or, selenium. In both seasons the unsupplemented steers had low blood concentrations of copper, selenium and glutathione peroxidase, whereas the supplemented steers maintained their serum copper concentrations within the normal range and had significantly higher whole blood concentrations of selenium and glutathione peroxidase than the unsupplemented animals. Supplementing the steers with 400 mg copper during 1978 increased their growth rate by 0.032 kg/day and supplementing them with 200 mg copper during 1979 increased it by 0.080 kg/day. Supplementing the steers in each year with two doses of selenium, each of 0.15 mg selenium/kg bodyweight, increased their growth rate by 0.041 kg/day in 1978 and by 0.060 kg/day in 1979. There was no interaction between the selenium and copper treatments and the total increases in liveweight gains due to both supplements were around 11 kg in 1978 and 16 kg in 1979.

Effect of Selenium Supplementation on Copper Metabolism in Dairy Cows

“…1983) andlivercopper (Fehrs et al 1981) Results which disagreed with the present work were produced in two of the studies noted above in which selenium was administered by injection (Hussein et al 1985; Thomson and Lawson 1970). On the other hand, when animals were fed supplemental selenium (Fehrs et al 1981;Gleed et al 1983), the results agreed with the present work. Hussein et al (1985) hypothesized that selenium injected in the form of selenite would be metabolized differently from selenium absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract.…”

The influence of dietary selenium as selenium yeast or sodium selenite on the concentration of selenium in the milk of Suckler cows and on the selenium status of their calves.

“…There have been reports of positive effects on weight gain after the Se supplementation of sheep (e.g., Oldfield et al, 1960;Hartley and Grant, 1961) and young cattle (Gleed et al, 1983;Wichtel et al, 1996). However, in all of these studies, the basal diet of the animals was extremely deficient in Se, and no effect of Se supplementation on weight gain has been found when the basal diet fed to young cattle has been marginal or normal in Se content (Weiss et al, 1983;Swecker et al, 1989).…”

Reaction cements as materials for the sustained release of trace elements into the digestive tract of cattle and sheep. I. Copper release

“…Copper deficiency may occur concurrently with deficiencies of other trace minerals. Supplementation with copper and selenium, for example, has been shown to have an additive effect in increasing the rates of growth of animals with no clinical signs of disease other than marginally low concentrations of Cu and Se in the blood (Gleed et al, 1983). The acid-base reaction cements described in this paper have been designed to include copper and other trace elements in their formulation.…”