Polyunsaturated fatty acid and peroxide levels in rations for fitch (Mustela putorius furo)

Authors: Hoogenboom JJL, Sutherland RJ, Rammell CG
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 32, Issue 12, pp 216-217, Dec 1984
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: Mustelid, Livestock, Wildlife
Subject Terms: Diet/rations/food, Fat/lipids, Disease/defect, Nutrition/metabolism
Article class: Correspondence

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Abstract: Nutritional steatitis or yellow fat disease is often fatal. and may cause severe economic loss among farmed fitch. This disease is the result of peroxidative stress in animals fed diets rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) particularly when these also have a high peroxide value. We have some circumstantial evidence that similar diets can predispose to the fatty liver-agalactia syndrome of nursing jills. One of the properties on which the latter syndrome occurred had fed gutted minced possum to the affected animals, and the problem disappeared when the diet was changed to gutted minced sheep. In a pilot study on this property analysis of the two rations revealed that the possum contained three times the total fatty acid (TFA) and about 10 times the PUFA level of sheep. (Unpublished data) In August 1983 we undertook a trial to compare sheep and possum derived rations. We analysed for fatty acids and studied the effects of delay between slaughter and ration preparation, and the effects of exposure to air at ambient temperature, on peroxide values of both rations…

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