Relationships between liver element concentration and cause of death in perinatal lambs in Michigan, USA

Relationships were characterized between liver concentration of Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, P and Zn and cause of death in pre-weaned Michigan lambs. In 1986, the 888 lambs that died before weaning from 33 Michigan sheep producers were submitted to the Michigan State University Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory for necropsy. Inductively coupled argon plasma emission spectroscopy was used to measure liver element concentrations. The five major causes of death discovered by gross necropsy were dystocia-stillborn, starvation-hypothermia, pneumonia, abortion and trauma. Each of the five causes of death had significant (P<0.05) associations with various liver element concentrations when evaluated with logistic regression. These results suggest that liver element concentrations in perinatal lambs dying of common production diseases can be expected to vary with the cause of death.