Plasma and cerebrospinal fluid magnesium, calcium and potassium concentrations in dairy cows with hypomagnesaemic tetany

Authors: Allsop TF, Pauli JV
Publication: New Zealand Veterinary Journal, Volume 22, Issue 12, pp 227-231, Dec 1974
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Animal type: Cattle, Livestock, Production animal, Ruminant
Subject Terms: Minerals/elememts, Clinical pathology, Diagnostic procedures, Metabolic disease, Disease/defect, Locomotor, Nervous system/neurology
Article class: Scientific Article

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Abstract: Although grass tetany is invariably associated with hypomagnesaemia, it is widely recognized that hypomagnesaemia per se is not sufficient to induce the signs. Meyer and Scholz (1972), using sheep fed a synthetic diet low in magnesium, have shown that the onset of nervous signs was more closely related to the level of magnesium in the cerebrospinal fluid (C.S.F.) than to that in plasma. Scholz and Meyer (1972) also reported that, in sheep during tetany, plasma phosphorus and sodium and C.S.F. calcium, phosphorus and sodium concentrations remained normal while plasma calcium and plasma and C.S.F. potassium both falll by an average of 30%. To investigate whether similar changes occur in dairy cows with hypomagnesaemic tetany, we measured plasma and C.S.F. concentrations of magnesium, calcium and potassium in samples from field cases of grass tetany and from cows with experimemally-induced hypomagnesaemic tetany.

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