Veterinary Clinical Medicine-II

ETIOLOGY OF BOVINE KETOSIS

• Nutritional or metabolic insult in high yielding cows in early lactation results in negative energy balance.
• Failure to provide sufficient glucose when the animals are subjected to heavier demands on their resource of glucose and glycogen, than can be met by their digestive and metabolic activity.
• Dysfunction of adrenal gland. Stress of parturition, lactation (cattle) and stress of late pregnancy (in ewes) and stress of malnutrition leads to decreased ACTH activity.
• Relative hypothyroidism.
• Composition of ration - ensilage (high in butyric acid) are more ketogenic than hay.
• Composition of ruminal flora influences digestive process and thus changes in end products of digestion and their relative concentrations. Hence, there is difference in ketogenicity between feeds. Eg. High protein diets produces more butyric acid.
• Factors those decrease energy supply, increase demand for glucose and increase utilization of body fat will lead to ketosis.
• Animals in 4 -10 weeks post-partum, peak milk yield and decreased dry mater intake are prone for ketosis.
• Starvation decrease propionic acid (relative) resulting in excessive utilization of fat.
• From quantitative and qualitative estimations of ketone bodies in rumen liquor and body fluids, it appears that abnormal ruminal conditions may play an important part in the production of clinical ketosis.
• Hepatic insufficiency - primary or secondary . Hypoglycemia results in mobilization of fat & its deposition in liver - perpetuation of hepatic insufficiency.