The Effect of Copper Deficiency on Essential Component Of Sheep Milk Khulood K.AL-Agealy , Jinan A.AL-Khalidi , Layla M.AL-Kinani

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of copper
deficiency on some milk constituents of ewes.(Thirty)raw milk samples have
been collected in the morning and before feeding of the ewes,(10) of them
from ewes suffering from copper deficiency and the other(20) milk samples
were collected from healthy ewes .The percentages of fat ,protein ,lactose,
chloride, specific gravity, moisture and the pH of milk were determined.
The results have shown that copper deficiency have an effect on the milk
constituents where all milk samples collected from ewes suffering from
copper deficiency had significantly (p<0.01) lower percentages of fat
(5.70%) ,protein(3.0%), lactose (3.4%)
and specific gravity (1.0338) than those collected from healthy ewes that had
(7.62%),(4.0%),(4.07%) and (1.0369) respectively.
Data revealed that there was a significant (p<0.01) increase in the
percentage of moisture (87%) and non significant (p>0.05) increase in the
percentage of chloride (0.0921%) in the milk samples collected from ewes
suffering from copper deficiency than healthy ones that had (83%) and
(0.0858%) respectively. In addition to that no changes in the pH values
between all milk samples were noticed