Selenium-vitamin E deficiency in swine fed peas (Pisum sativum)

An experiment was conducted to study the effects of feeding a 96.8% cull pea basal ration, low in selenium (0.061 ppm) and vitamin E (7.0 IU alpha-tocopherol/kg of ration), to growing pigs with and without supplementation of selenium, vitamin E, or both. The basal ration was high in crude protein (25.2%) and contained no supplemented fat. Nine of 10 pigs fed the unsupplemented basal ration had lesions attributed to selenium-vitamin E deficiency, and 8 of these pigs died during the 160-day experiment. The deficiency was usually characterized by sudden death (with no prior signs of illness), massive hepatic necrosis, hemoglobinuric and to a lesser extent cholemic nephrosis, degenerative myopathy of cardiac and skeletal muscles, edema, icterus, and acute terminal congestion and hemorrhage. Clinical signs, deaths, or lesions attributed to selenium-vitamin E deficiency were not observed in any of the pigs fed the basal ration supplemented with as little as 0.01 ppm selenium as sodium selenite or 100 ppm alpha-tocopherol. Pigs fed the unsupplemented basal ration gained more slowly (P less than 0.01) and less efficiently and had higher serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase (SGOT) levels (P less than 0.01) than pigs fed the basal ration supplemented with selenium, vitamin E, or both. There was no difference (P greater than 0.05) in albumin-to-globulin (A/G) ratios among dietary treatment groups. Using the criteria of this study, the minimum selenium requirement of growing pigs fed a low tocopherol cull pea diet was determined to be between 0.06 and 0.07 ppm.