Toxicologic studies with male sheep grazing on municipal sludge-amended soil

Growing sheep were grazed for 152 d on grass-legume forage growing on soil that had been amended with municipal sewage sludge from Syracuse, N.Y., at 224 metric tons per hectare. Cadmium was higher, but not significantly (p greater than 0.05), in tissues of sheep fed the sludge-grown forage as compared to controls. No significant differences between the sludge or control treatments were found in weight of the complete or cauda epididymis or in percent progressive motility of cauda epididymal sperm. The sludge-treatment group had significantly larger testes (p less than 0.025) when expressed as a percentage of body weight, and higher blood uric acid values (p less than 0.05). There were no observable changes in tissue ultrastructure of liver, kidney, muscle, or testes as examined by electron microscopy in either of the treatment groups. There were no significant differences for rate of animal weight gain, carcass weight, dressing percentage, or quality or yield grade of the carcases between the treatment groups.