On alimentary acetonuria and ketonuria in dairy cattle induced by feeding grass silage of the butyric acid type

Abstract

Attention has been directed to the occurrence of acetonuria in apparently healthy and in diseased cattle.It has been shown possible to cause analimentary acetonuriain milch cows experimentally by feeding large quantities of grass silage of the butyric acid type. The reaction of the urine remained alkaline and the ammonia content was within a normal range, showing that there was no real acidosis. The animals seemed by no means to be ill.As to the cause of the acetonuria,a priori, there seemed to be little doubt that in these cases the ketones resulted, in the animal body, from the incomplete oxidation of the butyric acid of the grass silage. Yet, further experiments with a lactic acid silage containing no butyric acid at all indicated that the question may be more complex.