Iron Metabolism in the veal calf

1. The iron requirements of eighteen Ayrshire bull calves reared on fat-supplemented skim milk for 14 weeks from c. 16 d of age have been studied. There was a highly significant relationship between dietary Fe intake (10, 40 and 100 mg/kg dry diet) and blood haemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume and plasma Fe concentration. 2. A microcytic normochromic anaemia developed in the calves given a diet containing 10 mg Fe/kg diet, but not in the other calves. 3. Plasma Fe concentrations increased to > 5 μg Fe/ml in calves receiving 100 mg Fe/kg diet but there were no effects of Fe treatment on plasma Fe-binding capacity, which rose from 4·9 to 8·4 μg Fe/ml during the experiment. Saturation of plasma transferrin was only 3% in the Fe-deficient calves. 4. There were some significant effects of Fe treatment on tissue concentrations of Fe and cytochrome c. 5. Dietary supplementation with 5 mg copper/kg dry diet had little effect on the growth or haematological status of the calves, although there were significant Cu × Fe interactions for mean corpuscular haemoglobin and mean corpuscular volume. There was no evidence of Cu deficiency in the calves, as measured by blood and liver Cu concentrations and by ceruloplasmin and cytochrome oxidase activities.