Efficacy of mineral mixture and salt supplementation on serum mineral profile in pica affected camels

Abstract

The present study was carried out to measure serum mineral profile status in pica affected camels and its changes after supplementation of mineral mixture with salt in these camels. The proposed study was carried out at an organized camel herd at NRCC, Bikaner. After that 18 severely pica affected camel were selected and divided into 3 groups to evaluate responsiveness of treatment, mineral mixture (group A) and mineral mixture with common salt (group B) and untreated control group (group C) camels. Blood samples were collected each 15 days of interval up to 60 days for mineral profile. The mean value of total P, Zn, Cu, Fe and Mg that was initially low tend to increase in both treatment groups whereas Na was decreased and tend to stabilized at 60th days in both treatment groups. However, salt treated group was shown better in serum minerals values over another treated group. However additional salt supplementation was observed over mineral supplementation found better results.