Scientific Electronic Archives (May 2016)
Laboratory results of females Nellore of different age groups from farms with and without the presence of bracken fern (Pteridium arachnoideum).
Abstract
The Pteridium arachnoideum, previously classified as Pteridium aquilinum, popularly known as bracken fern, is one of the most preoccupying poisonous vegetables in several countries, including Brazil. Brazilian researchers characterized, experimentally, three clinic forms of diseases caused by bracken fern to cattle: bleeding diathesis, Bovine Enzootic Hematuria and squamous cell carcinoma in the digestive tracts. In the present work we studied the hematological, biochemical and urinalysis values of two different phases of the animal development being 56 calves and 55 cows from farms with similar zootechnical characteristics and with and without the presence of bracken fern. In this study there was a significant fall in the values of the hematocrit, hemoglobin and number of red blood cells in the calves from farms with the presence of bracken fern, however, for the group of cows there was a fall only in the number of red blood cells compared to the group of animals from farms without the presence of bracken fern. The number of Platelets was significantly superior in all of the age groups of animals from farms with bracken fern. There were no significant alterations in the leucocyte count indicating that there was no systemic inflammatory response in any of the two categories
