title: Ingestion of iron in sow's faeces by piglets reared in farrowing crates with slotted floors.
abstract: 1. Two sows were housed in farrowing crates with slotted floors and fed daily with approximately 200 microCi 198Au from 3 d before farrowing until their piglets were 21 d old. 2. Th sows' faeces became radioactive but their milk remained free of radioactivity. The piglets' mean (+/- SE) whole-body radioactivity was equivalent to 8.5 +/- 0.9 g (range 3.8-15.5 g) of faeces. This is probably a measure of their daily intake of faeces. 3. The possibility of using this natural coprophagia to prevent piglet anaemia has been demonstrated on two commercial piggeries by feeding the sows a diet containing 2000 mg Fe/kg.
mesh_terms: D000747:Anemia, Hypochromic / Q000517:prevention & control; D000818:Animals; D003303:Coprophagia / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006050:Gold Radioisotopes; D006799:Housing, Animal; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism*; D013552:Swine / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D006050:Gold Radioisotopes; D007501:Iron