Some Effects of Feeding Various Filled Milks to Dairy Calves. III. Blood Plasma Tocopherol and Vitamin A Levels, Diet Storage Effects, and Evidence of Toxicity

Low blood plasma tocopherol levels were found in calves fed corn oil filled milk, despite a relatively high toeopherol intake.Both plasma tocopherol and vitamin A values declined progressively during the experimental period in the corn oil filled milk group.Low blood plasma toeopherol levels also occurred in animals fed lard filled milk and a ration containing butter oil, which was prepared from oxidized butter.Oral supplementation of the corn oil and lard filled milk diets with 500 rag. of DL-alpha tocopherol or alpha tocopheryl acetate daily resulted in high plasma tocopherol values.A loss of 30-40% of total toeopherol content of the corn oil filled milk resulted during a maxinmm storage period o£ seven days.It was also demonstrated that an extremely high peroxide content deveh)p,~d in the e(n'n oil filled mill< during' n similar storage period.'l;he feeding of a corn oil filled milk prepared daily rather than at weekly intervals markedly redueed the severity of the diarrhea and increased dry matter digestibility.Weight gains, however, were m)t materiMly affected.The weekly prepared corn oil filled milk was found tf> be ns detrimental for calves 4 me.old ~s for younger ,nnimais.The possibility theft corn oil tilled milk is toxic to dairy calves is discussed in e()nsiderahh, (let~,il.,qim.ctim ])resen('e of hi~'hly unsaluraled t'als ;Iml ram'id fals, in g(:neral, Ires l)een associated 1)y various workers (18, ]9) with tim (l(,stvu(qion ot! fats(d(d~le vitamit~s or alt(,r'zt?io,s in ll,' body veq(~iv(,menls for sm, h factors, a slu(ly was und(,rtakcn of bh)~)d plasm,J lo('ophcrol ~[]ltl Vil~Llllill A lev(.qs ill e~llVcS fed various filled milks.The symptoms of muscular involvement reported prevhmsly (1) as o(~,.~rrbJ:~"it, a**imals fed eoml oil till('d milk furth(,r s~ggestcd the ne(:essity of such a study.Other phases of the investigaliml presented here were ~.onducted because of evidence reported by other workers (7, 21) that highly oxidized f~lts Mso exert a direct toxic affect upon the body.I,;X I'I,;RIM hlNr['AI, ]'P~O(JEDUIIE The methods used in the fee(lin~ mid management ()f the subjects have beech putdish(!dearlier" (1, 2).Al)l)roximately 50-ml.samt)les of .iuguhlrl)lood were R(,(,eivcd for publication August 4, ] 958.