THYRO-PROTEIN EXPERIMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 25740, 2 August 1945, Page 6

THYRO-PROTEIN EXPERIMENTS

VETERINARY EXPERTS IN N.Z.

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, August 1. New Zealand veterinary experts know all about thyro-protein, the substance which accelerates milk production in cows and which was described in a cable message from London. _ Dr C. P. McMeekan, superintendent of the Ruakura Animal Research Station, said today that he and his staff had been conducting experiments with it. for about two years and Dr E. N. Campbell, of the Dairy Research Institute at Palmerston North, had also been working on it. “While experiments in New Zealand are still in the exploratory stage, the present indications are that the use of thyro-protein to stimulate milk production has definite limitations under our grassland system of dairying, said Dr McMeekan. “The main reason for this is that cows in this country cannot be rationed according to production as they can in Britain and America where concentrates form the bulk of the diet. It is not normally practicable under our conditions to provide the additional nutriment required to produce the extra milk that the feeding of thyro-protein will stimulate, in consequence, cows fed the material here rapidly lose condition through feed shortages.” Dr McMeekan explained that thyroprotein was simply synthetic thyroxin, the normal product bf the thyroid glands and the material which set the pace of all body functions. Feeding the cow on this material made it work at a more rapid rate and for this reason it had to be very closely watched. The effect was similar to that on a car built to run 40 miles an hour, which quickly showed signs of a breakdown if forced to run at 60 miles an hour. “New Zealand research workers are not over optimistic about the practical possibility of the scheme. At the same time, we have found other valuable uses for the material, particularly in relation to male sterility and experiments are proceeding on these lines,’ concluded Dr McMeekan.

A message from London stated: — Scientists have discovered a new method of making cows give more milk and more butterfat, says the agricultural correspondent of The Daily Herald. It has been tried out in parallel large-scale experiments in England and the United States during the war years. The results have been remarkable. Experiments have developed a synthetic product which Has similar properties to the secretion of the thyroid gland- It is a. powder resembling brown sugar and is called thyro-protein. It is made through a special process of adding iodine to skimmed milk and is incorporated in small doses in the cow’s ration. Its effect is to speed up the conversion of the cow’s food into milk., In England the experiments are in progress under the supervision of Dr H- D. Kay of the Dairy Research In- I stitute at Reading. I The main problems were the cost' of the new product and arrangements for incorporating it in feeding mixtures, but these have been solved and American scientists estimate that it can now be fed for the cost of less than twopence a day per cow. Thyro-protein, it is claimed, will also increase egg production, hasten growth of young animals and enable ewes to produce lambs all the year round.