Polyunsaturated fatty acid and peroxide levels in rations for fitch (Mustela putorius furo)

Abstract

Extract

Sir: — Nutritional steatitis or yellow fat disease(1) (2) is often fatal. and may cause severe economic loss among farmed fitch (Mustela putorius furo). This disease is the result of peroxidative stress in animals fed diets rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) particularly when these also have a high peroxide value.(2) We have some circumstantial evidence that similar diets can predispose to the fatty liver-agalactia syndrome of nursing jills.(3) One of the properties on which the latter syndrome occurred had fed gutted minced possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) to the affected animals and the problem disappeared when the diet was changed to gutted minced sheep. In a pilot study on this property analysis of the two rations revealed that the possum contained three times the total fatty acid (TFA) and about 10 times the PUFA level of sheep. (Unpublished data)