The possibilities of oral iron supply in calves to maintain their health status.

Oral supply of 100 mg iron as bivalent cations per day effectively prevente d clinical and subclinical symptoms of anaemia in calves. Additionally, mal e and female carves reached optimal growth values. The supplementation of i ron to alleviate neonatal masked anaemia ("physiological anaemia") should s tart on the first day of life. This measure can be terminated at the end of the praeruminal stage of the development, as young carves are able to fake up all ferric ions contained in the diet. The real extend of the iron defi ciency of calves could not be determined by clinical symptoms. As a practic al measure it is recommended to use the packed cell volume test.