The influence of dietary protein on live bodyweight, degree of anaemia and erythropoietic responses of Scottish blackface sheep infected experimentally with Trypanosoma congolense.

The present study investigated the influence of dietary protein on the intensity of parasitaemia, degree of anaemia and erythropoietic responses, in sheep experimentally infected with Trypanosoma congolense and given either a high protein diet (116 g digestible crude protein [DCP] per day) or a low protein diet (51.5 g DCP per day). It was observed that infected and control animals on the high protein diet grew at similar rates while infected animals on the low protein diet experienced marked retardation of growth compared with their uninfected controls. Dietary protein had no influence on the degree of anaemia that followed infection. Measurement of blood volumes revealed that low protein infected group had significantly lower mean circulating red cell volume than their controls. Ferrokinetic measurements indicated that plasma iron turnover rates (PITR) and 59Fe incorporation rates were higher in the high protein infected group than in the low protein infected group, although these differences were not significant. These observations indicate that infected animals on a high protein tended to show greater enhancement of erythropoietic activity that infected animals on low protein diet.