Selenium Content of Feedstuffs and Effects of Dietary Selenium Levels upon Tissue Selenium in Chicks and Poults

Abstract

DURING the 13 years since the discovery of the nutritional need for selenium in diets for rats (Schwarz and Foltz, 1957) and chicks, (Scott et al, 1957; and Stokstad et al., 1957) numerous nutritional studies conducted on selenium have shown that in addition to preventing dietary liver necrosis in vitamin E-deficient rats and exudative diathesis in vitamin E-deficient chicks, selenium is needed to prevent myopathies of the heart and skeletal muscles in calves and lambs, of the heart and gizzard muscles in turkeys, and to prevent atrophy and fibrosis of the pancreas in chicks. While most of these selenium-responsive nutritional diseases also are responsive to vitamin E, degeneration and fibrosis of the pancreas of the chick (Thompson and Scott, 1970) and hairlessness, poor growth and reproductive failure in rats (McCoy and Weswig, 1969) are prevented with as little as 0.1 mg of dietary selenium per kg. of diet, but not…