Trace minerals: A Key to Improve Livestock Female Reproduction
- Nikhil Kumar Tej* and I. Vasantha Seshu Kumari
Assistant Professor, Department of Veterinary Physiology, NTR College of Veterinary Science, Gannavaram, AP
*Corresponding author- drnikhilkumartej@gmail.com
Livestock sector plays crucial role in supply of milk, meat and cashmere and also supports the livelihood of large number of farmers across the globe. Consistent supply of livestock products depends on health and reproductive activity of the animals. Several factors including disease condition, malnutrition, heat stress, poor management etc negatively affect animal production. The susceptibility of the animals to these stressors emphasis the need for use of therapeutic agents/growth factors to improve animal health and production. Research on augmentation of animal health and reproductive activity revealed that the use of trace minerals offers possible solution as trace minerals acts as antioxidants, improve immunity, controls metabolism and also acts as component of hormones and thus directly regulate endocrine functions.
Ruminants usually require adequate levels of trace minerals in order to maintain optimum reproductive activity. They are available from dietary feed and fodder. Though required in minute quantity they are highly crucial for health, production and immunity. The micro minerals include cobalt, selenium, iron, manganese, copper, iodine, and zinc which are needed in very minute or trace amounts, usually less than 100 mg/kg dry matter in the body while excess feeding of these show toxicity symptoms.
Why additional trace minerals supplementation is required?
- Majority of the farmers provide less green forage to livestock due to lack of forage lands
- Farmers feed less concentrates to livestock as they are expensive
- Animals usually have excess access to dry roughages which are less in concentration of trace minerals
- In some areas soil may be deficient in trace mineral concentration and the same is reflected in plants
General functions of trace minerals
- Trace minerals are involved in several biological functions.
- They are involved in cellular respiration and maintenance of cell membrane integrity
- Trace minerals function as cofactors of enzymes
- They act as chain breaking antioxidants and prevent oxidative stress by quenching free radicals
- Some of the trace minerals are component of hormones and thus directly regulate endocrine functions.
- Mediates carbohydrate, protein and nucleic acid metabolism
Trace mineral deficiency and reproductive disorders
Trace minerals hold crucial roles in maximizing female reproduction as deficiencies of trace minerals are linked to numerous reproductive disorders.
- Commonly recorded selenium deficient reproductive disorders of cattle are silent, weak or irregular estrus, cystic ovaries, retained placenta, still birth, abortion, early embryonic mortality, mastitis and metritis (Randhawa and Randhawa, 1994)
- Combined deficiency of selenium and iodine in dairy herd was associated with high incidence of milk fever, retained fetal membranes, and vulval discharge (Husband, 2006)
- Deficiency of selenium, zinc and copper resulted in impaired ovarian activity and anestrus in Nili-ravi buffaloes (Akhtar et al. 2009)
- Copper deficient Egyptian buffalo-cows had ovarian inactivity, small hard ovaries, small sized uterus and anestrus for six months post calving (Ahmed et al. 2009)
- Copper and molybdenum deficiency was associated with delayed and depressed estrus, still birth, abortion, infertility and congenital ataxia in sheep and goats (Vazquez-Armijo et al. 2011)
Effect of trace mineral supplementation in female reproduction
The trace minerals likely to be of most practical significance in female reproduction are selenium, copper, cobalt, zinc, iron, manganese and iodine.
- Parenteral administration of trace minerals (Multimin, Minerthal, Brazil) to crossbred heifers significantly improved conception rates (Sales et al. 2011)
- Parenteral administration of copper (50mg ethylene diamine tetra acetate of copper) improved 100 % heat presentations in hypocupremic heifers (Garcia-Diaz et al. 2012)
- Deitary supplementation of anestrus hypocupremic buffalo cows and heifer with 3 mg of copper sulfate penta hydrate @ 3g/week for two months resulted in a significant increase in estrus percent (Mudgal et al. 2014)
- Supplementation of goats with selenium plex @ 300 mg orally for 16 days resulted in significant increase number of follicles, CL and size of the ovary (Vázquez-Hernández et al. 2017)
- Musa et al. (2018) reported that subcutaneous injection of sodium selenite at 14 days apart followed by estrus synchronization with CIDR resulted in 100% estrus response, lambing rate and fecundity rate in Yankasa ewes
- Dietary supplementation of Zinc significantly increased ovary size and number of follicles in buffalo heifer (Nagalakshmi et al. 2017)
From the review it was evident that deficiency of trace minerals leads to impaired ovarian activity while supplementation (dietary or parenteral) of trace minerals significantly improves ovarian activity in ruminants. Despite of the fact that trace minerals are available in green fodder, the adlibidum availability of green fodder to majority of the livestock population in Indian scenario is meager. Thus it may be assumed that major livestock population in India is deficient of trace minerals which could be the primer cause of depressed ovarian activity/infertility in ruminants. As no female pregnant visiting the gynecologist leave the hospital without multivitamin and mineral supplement prescription, in the same way it is mandatory to supplement trace minerals to improve reproduction in ruminants.
References
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http://ijlr.org/issue/role-of-trace-minerals-in-animal-production-and-reproduction/
https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/importance-of-minerals-in-animal-feeding/
