Livestock Studies 2001, Vol 41, Num, 2     (Pages: 021-030)

An Investigation on Determination of Mineral Deficiency in Cattle in Kars Province

Başaran KARADEMİR 1 ,İsmail KAYA 2

1 Kafkas Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi İç Hastalıklar Ana Bilim Dalı-Kars
2 Kafkas Üniversitesi Veteriner Fakültesi Hayvan Besleme ve Beslenme Hastalıkları Ana Bilim Dalı-Kars
- This investigation was aimed to determine whether there was any mineral deficiency in cattle in Kars and how farmers did to prevent or to correct this condition. As a sign of mineral deficiency, farmers were asked that cattle had predilection to having substance which were not feed in characters.

The ivestigation was carried out on the questionnaire data of randomly selected 414 cattle farmers in Kars province.

Results showed that the signs of mineral deficiency was existed in calves and adult cattle (99.28 %, 99.52 %, respectively).

To prevent or correct this deficiency in the district, farmers widely was detected to give their cattle lick-stone (calves, winter: 67.87 % , summer: 19.57 %, adult cattle, winter: 0.48 %, summer: 0.48 %) and rock-salt (in bulk or small granules) (calves, winter: 24.15 % , summer: 21.50 % , adult cattle, winter: 98.31 % , summer: 89.61 %). Addition to these findings, a few number of cattle farmers was determined to give mineral premix suspension (MMKS) and mineral premix powder (MMKT) to their cattle (as a total values, calves, winter: 1.21 %, summer: 0.24 % , adult cattle, winter: 0.48 % , summer: 0 %). According to questonnaire data there were some farmers who did nothing for the prevention or correction of the deficiency (calve: winter 11.11 %, summer 58.94 %, adult cattle: winter 1.21 %, summer 9.90 %).

In researched district in spite of large number of farmers using lick-stone and rock-salt. Besides, ıt was detected that no sign of mineral deficiency in a few number of farms where MMKT and MMKS were used in normal amount. Keywords : Mineral deficiency, cattle, questionaire, Kars