The use of phosphorus-32 in the diagnosis of phosphorus deficiency in sheep

Phosphorus deficiency has been recorded in cattle in most states of Brazil and while clinical deficiencies are easily recognised and corrected, subclinical deficiencies often go undetected. The development of a method for the diagnosis of borderline deficiencies would have considerable value since such deficiencies are economically very important. In the experiments reported here, a variety of methods were employed for diagnosing phosphorus deficiency in ruminants, including the uptake of 32P by rumen microorganisms and by erythrocytes. The results show that P deficiency depresses the synthetic capacity of rumen microflora, indicating that 32P uptake might be of some value in the detection of such deficiency. By contrast, the uptake of 32P by erythrocytes was unrelated to P status of the animal. (author)