IRON FOR ANIMALS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 244, 15 October 1932, Page 8 (Supplement)

IRON FOR ANIMALS

AUTOMATIC FEEDING METHOD USE OF FINELY GROUND LIMONITE WITH SALT USEFUL MINERAL DEPOSITS IN NORTH

What may be referred to as the food iron development is pursuing its practical course among the iron-hungry flocks and herds. The Chief Chemist of the Department of Agriculture, Mr. B. C. Aston, tells how it is done at Atiamuri and other places in an article in the Journal of Agriculture.

If cows or sheep are iron-starved, there are two points at which the required iron may be introduced. It may be introduced into the soil, or it may be fed direct to the animal. If iron is added to the soil it must be placed there in such a condition that the grass or pasture can absorb it and pass it on to the animal. Under this head Mr. Aston writes: “The use of iron sulphate mixed with fertiliser for topdressing bush sick pastures has long been advocated as the result of the Agriculture Department’s experiments at Lichfield and elsewhere (sec article in the Journal for December, 1928, entitled ‘Farming of Bush-sick Country’ reissued separately a s a leaflet). Fertiliser manufacturers are now acting on this, advice, and experimenting with a fertiliser made from limonte and phosphate rock; which would result in a I»hate rock; which would result in a superphosphate containing soluble iron. ” But the main story is about “direct to the animal’’ methods. The giving of iron (or other medicinal preparation) by hand to farm animals is perhaps as old as the giving of iron in a medicinal way to human beings. But what the author and other investigators have been after is a method by which farm animals will consume the iron automatically as part of a regular meal —such as human beings in a goitre district are schooled into taking iodine when they take their iodised salt. Easier Than Giving by Hand. The “lick” method is of course cheaper than hand-administration methods. If sheep and cattle regularly eat a mixture (including iron) in a trough, or if dairy cows eat it in their meal while being milked in the bails, the feeding of iron becomes a system and not expensive nor cumbrous. First of all, the agricultural chemist must dip into the mineral resources of the country, and test many iron compounds to find the most suitable. After parly experiments with spathic iron (found in the Waikato) the opinion was reached that it was not available in quantity and in conditions to be cheap enough; and later developments suggest that limonite (hydrated oxide of iron), whichexists in inexhaustible quantities near Whangarei and at Onakaka, will be satisfactory in quantity, quality and cost. Mr. Aston is careful to state: “These experiments must not be interpreted as throwing any doubt on the efficacy of iron ammonium citrate as a drench or otherwise given by hand to stock. It is now proved that it is inferior to the non-soluble limonite only when fed automatically’ as a lick to sheep, owing to their disinclination to consume it.”

The limonite “only requires to be ground extremely finely and mixed with an equal weight of salt to provide an efficient remedy not only for sheep, but also for cattle. If the limonite and salt are scattered on hay or ensilage when the stacks are built there is evidence that the remedy is equally efficient when consumed by stock in this way, so that a method of automatic administration is effected additional to the lick method. “With regard to the feeding of salt to stock, one may say that a fair consumption would bo loz. per week per sheep, and about seven times as much for a cattle boast—say, loz. per day. If other materials are mixed with the salt, allowance must be made and the amounts of those added to the amount of salt fed.”

Saving the Lambs. Details of the experiments with

limonite groups of sheep, citrate groups, and non-treated groups are remarkable, but the tables, graphs, and photographs in the article cannot be reprinted here, i The “outstanding” experiment was conducted at the Atiamuri station of Messrs. Hill and Sons, a well-known wool-dealing firm. Here, as elsewhere, there had been trouble in securing good lambs. One of the findings in the article is that “the treatment of the ewe with an iron lick before the lamb is born is regarded as essential to success in this country in raising lambs.” Air. Aston gives “a very largo share of the credit for the success” to Air. C. R. Taylor, analyst’s assistant, stationed at Rotorua, and to the manager of the station. Mr. T. V. Hunmhrev.

“ Any idea that this experiment was of the nature of a State or fertiliser company’s farm demonstration, and therefore might possibly be considered by farmers as having been conducted in a manner which they could not afford to follow in actual practice, must not be for a moment entertained. Further, the whole expense of the experiment, including the cost of losses on the control of untreated groups of animals, in which the mortality of ewes and lambs was only that expected to occur, was borne by the owners of the run.” Teaching Them to Feed on it. “Little or no difficulty was experienced in getting the sheep chosen for the experiment to take either the iron carbonate and salt lick or the limonite and salt lick, possibly owing to the absence of any characteristic flavour in these iron compounds, and the fact that the sheep were accustomed to a plain salt lick prior to the commencement of the trial. Whenever difficulty has arisen it has always been very simply overcome by taking a few of the sheep to be treated or given lick and shutting them up in a very small area, such as a sheepyard pen, and practically starving them for four or five days if i.ecessary, with only a trough of lick and a few chopped up turnips, or a handful or so of grass thoroughly mixed up with it before them. The idea, of course, is to compel the sheep through starvation to eat the turnips or grass carrying the lick, and so acquire a taste and liking for it. It has never been necessary to keep the animals penned for longer than five days, whether they appear to be taking the straight-out lick or not, so long as they have freely taken the turnips or grass. By then they have usually acquired a taste for the lick, know what it looks like, and are not afraid of the receptacle containing it. The trained sheep can now be put back with the rest of the flock, and they will educate the others into taking the lick. About six sheep per hundred are all that are required for this purpose.” Here is part of Air. Aston’s sum-ming-up: “A considerable advance has been made in the search for a rational and economic remedy for ‘ bush sickness’ in sheep; rational because some form of iron treatment is indi--1 eated as necessary by 30 years of experimenting in field and laboratory, and economic because the automatic administration of iron has hitherto been only successful on a small scale or by employing a costly meal containing rhe iron in the form of iron ammonium citrate. The search for die right form of iron obtainable in nature i.i large, enough quantities for the purpose has resulted in fixing upon the hydrated oxide of iron called ‘limonite’ (Fe 2 O 3 3 II 2 O), a brown oxide which is much more soluble in acids than the non hydrated red oxide, haematite (Fe 20