Count on our valuable minerals and trace elements
With our AntaPlus products you prepare the way for healthy body functions in the animal. For example with our sources of highly available magnesium.
Magnesium in animal nutrition
Nowadays the demands on animal performance in agriculture are very high. The intensive production systems are coupled with a lot of stress for the animals which is expressed in fights, cannibalism, high mortality rates during transport and sudden death syndrome but also in lower meat quality.
In addition to the appropriate management factors that are important to minimise stress, the supplementation of minerals (especially magnesium) and trace elements plays a major role in alleviating the symptoms of stress.
Function of magnesium in the animal organism
Apart from potassium, magnesium is one of the most important mineral components of the cell. Magnesium exercises important functions as a skeleton component, in the neuromuscular system and for the protein synthesis in the animal. As an enzyme activator, magnesium catalyses different enzyme reactions, which take part in the maintenance of neuromuscular excitation and in ion transport.
About 0.05% of the body mass consists of magnesium and it is well-known in human medicine that magnesium plays an important role in the myocardial metabolism. There are connections between magnesium deficiency and the occurrence of heart necroses, cardiomyopathy as well as cardiac infarctions.
Consolidated findings on the physiological role of magnesium in the intermediary metabolism of pigs have shown that magnesium ions, in particular in connection with sodium ions, can lessen the excitability of neurons. Therefore there is a large interest in magnesium for the treatment of stress-conditioned losses.
Resorption of magnesium in monogastric animals takes place mostly in the small intestine, in polygastric animals in the rumen. Sufficient supplementation is not only dependent on the analytical content of the ration but also on the availability in the organism. With a dosage rate that fulfils all nutritional requirements the availability of dietary magnesium varies between 10 and 20 %. It is influenced by various factors like animal age and chemical composition of the magnesium. The organic forms in general show a better availability than inorganic forms.
In practice the mostly used source of magnesium is the inorganic magnesium oxide, which can vary considerably in its availability depending on the origin. Different publications give the relative availability as varying between 25 and 117 %. Due to the extreme variability in origin, composition and availability of magnesium oxide sources, their use as a standard should be considered cautiously.
Other magnesium compounds, for example organic salts, such as magnesium fumarate, magnesium propionate and magnesium acetate, are better available for the animal. Magnesium in the form of magnesium fumarate showed a markedly better apparent absorption rate in testing than e.g. magnesium oxide (fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Apparent absorbability of minerals with different sources of magnesium
Antagonistic reciprocal effects with other quantity elements could not be observed. Also the mineral retention was better with an extra supplement of magnesium as magnesium fumarates than in the oxide form (fig. 2).
Fig. 2:Mineral retention after supplementing different sources of magnesium
An investigation magnesium contents in the heart muscle of pigs indicates the positive effect of magnesium addition to heart cycle disturbance. With use of magnesium fumarate higher contents of magnesium were measured in the heart muscle than with the employment of magnesium oxide.
Under "Service & Support" you can order our product and application descriptions without obligation. You can also send us an e-mail. Alternatively you can order your Datasheets under datenblaetter at dr-eckel.de. Or simply call us. We will be pleased to advise you.
 "Zoom (39KB)")
