A review of developments in nutrition as it is related to fertility in cattle: 1964–9

Abstract

Extract

This review covers developments in the study of nutrition and infertility in cattle in the five-year period, 1964–69. The term infertility is used in the sense of reproductive failure up to the end of the first third of gestation. At the beginning of 1964, the following nutrients were known, or were believed with reasonable certainty, to be essential for reproduction; and deficiencies, or in some instances imbalances, of these factors could lead to infertility:

1. An adequate plane of nutrition (or intake of total digestible nutrients) (Bond et al., 1958; Wiltbank et al., 1962).

2. Protein (Guilbert, 1942).

3. The minerals phosphorus (Tuff, 1923; Theiler and Green, 1932), manganese (Bentley and Phillips, 1951; Hignett, 1959), cooper (Cunningham, 1950; Underwood, 1962) and cobalt (Alderman, 1963).

4. Carotene and vitamin A (Guilbert, 1942). Classification of the nutrients in this, the customary manner, is useful for descriptive and reference purpose but the classification of the nutrient causes of infertility according to feed type has possibly more clinical application.