Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2017
Little is known about the cobalt requirements of goats, or of ‘normal values’ for related diagnostic parameters. Consequently an experiment was set up, to define their minimum cobalt requirement and to establish critical levels of some diagnostic parameters.
24 wether goats were housed, fed a cobalt deficient diet of urea treated hay and cereal, and randomly allocated into 4 groups. Groups 2-4 received a cobalt supplement as detailed below in addition to the 0.04 mg Co/kg DM supplied by the diet. The goats were weighed weekly and blood sampled fortnightly.