Evaluation of the relationship between serum lactate and potassium levels with clinical signs of calf diarrhea syndrome in calves referred to the large animal clinic of Islamic Azad University of Tabriz Branch

Abstract

Diarrhea in newborn calves is often accompanied by metabolic acidosis which is the main reason for the establishment of symptoms related to diarrhea syndrome such as lethargy, recumbency, decreased suckling strength and etc. In order to be informed of lactic acid levels in the blood of diarrheaic calves, samples were collected from 100 affected and 20 healthy calves as the control group referred to the large animal clinic. In this respect, 120 blood samples were collected from the jugular vein using Venoject tubes, their sera separated by centrifugation and stored at -20°C in micro tubes and lactic acid levels were determined by enzymatic method. In this study, mean lactic acid levels of 4.72±0.02 mmol/lit and 1.2±0.05 mmol/lit were recorded in diarrheaic and healthy calves. Also, mean potassium levels in healthy and diarrheaic calves were 4.20±0.03 mmol/lit and 6.70±0.01 mmol/lit respectively. The results of the present study indicated that there was a significant relationship between diarrheaic and serumic levels of lactic acid and potassium (P

Keywords

• Lactate
• Potassium
• diarrhea syndrome
• Serum
• clinical signs