Helping Nature

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 23

Helping Nature

Mineral Salts and Healthy Stock

E\ intelligent pastoralist of the present day knows that Nature is the best stock-doctor. As with men, so with beasts. A healthy constitution is the most effective specific. However, when fodder is lacking in essential nutriments and minerals, due to uncontrollable circumstances, an animal s vitality is necessarily affected, and its power of resistance to disease diminished.

VOR instance, during a drought period, fodder lacks many of the growth-building salts that are essential to an animal’s health. It contains an excessive amount of fibrous matter which will not readily be digested—sometimes, not at all—but will only fill the animal and tax its digestive powers to obtain any nourishment from it. Under these circumstances, assistance must be provided in the form of mineral salts to make the work ol' digestion easier and to keep the sys tem in good order. Again, pastures which have been grazed year in and year out are gradually exhausted of the mineral elements needed by healthy stock. Yet, though the land is impoverished, the modern ewe, growing a heavier fleece and required to raise a lamb yearly, has to stand a strain on its nervous system far greater than the ewe of a few years ago. Obviously, something must be done to help it. There used to be a widespread belief that common salt (sodium chloride) was all that was needed to repair these deficiencies in diet. The inadequacy of this remedy by itself may be realised from a glance at the

physical composition of an animal. It is constituted of the following elements: Carbon, potassium, magnesium, hydrogen, sulphur, iron, oxygen, phosphorus, fluorine, nitrogen, sodium, silicon, calcium, chlorine, iodine. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen are present in practically all fodder. so that these elements are readily obtainable. Sodium and chlorine are frequently lacking, but may be readily replaced by the supply of common salt. Calcium -and phosphorus are essential to the building-up of the bony structure. The pregnant animal depends largely upon them to develop the unborn young. After birth they form a considerable proportion of the milk. If there is insufficient lime in the animal’s diet to supply this very necessary element, calcium, there will be a decided falling--off in the birthrate and also the milk yield. Most fodder plants have the ability to absorb lime salts from the soil, the extent of this, absorption depending upon the quantity of lime present. When deficient, lime can cheaply and easily be distributed to the land with most beneficial results, since it has a tendency to free, hard clay soil.

bind sandy soil, sweeten sour country and improve the growth of vegetable and animal life generally. Phosphorus is most profitably administered in the form of sterilised bone flour, or mineral mixtures containing an adequate proportion of bone flour. Animals will sometimes be observed chewing bones in a hopeless attempt to secure the phosphates which they require. The amount obtainable in this maimer is, of course, negligible, and human intervention is plainly called for. Potassium, or potash, is essential to

life and must always be obtainable by the animal. It plays a large part in the formation of wool. Iron, sulphur, and magnesium are required in small quantities only. They have a laxative tendency and

exert a tonic effect upon the blood i and digestive tract. lodine has only of late come into prominence. It was found that high altitudes or low temperatures affected animal (and human) life, since they created a lack of this important element. Respiration and physical growth are controlled by a minute percentage of iodine, also mental development, certainty of pregnancy, resistance to infection, and the digestion and assimilation of fats. It has been conclusively proved that iodine i» necessary where the mean temperature does not exceed 61deg. Over that temperature, Nature seems to have provided plant life with sufficient iodine for all ordinary purposes. Thus it becomes clear why iodine must be employed during the winter months to ensure a prolific reproduction of healthy stock, and to repair the weakness in the females. To-day advanced farming methods teach that mineral deficiencies should be supplied in the form of balanced manures. Thus, a fresh reason why the farmer should study his soil and be able to assess its deficiencies. For years, milk-sickness proved a mystery in the United States. Eventually it was connected with the “trembles” in cows, and it was discovered that the poison was introduced into the system of the cow and thence to man through the milk by a plant called snakeroot. Occasionally, mineral poisons find their way accidentally into food supplies. Probably the best known examples of this occurred in the Midlands in Great Britain in 1900, when no fewer than 6,000 persons were prostrated and 70 died. After very careful investigation, the trouble was traced to arsenic in the beer of certain breweries introduced quite innocently by impurities in the chemicals used, which, although harmless in themselves, were capable of producing arsenic under certain conditions. In a similar manner cocoa sold by a wellknown English firm was also found to contain arsenic in dangerous quantities derived from potassium carbonate employed in its manufacture. The most insidious mineral poison is probably lead. As long ago as 1767 “Devonshire colic” was traced to the action of cider on leaden vessels. Today we have a common-sense appreciation of the cumulative dangers of lead poisoning, and all cooking utensils are free of lead.