EFFECT OF DIFFERENT DIETARY LEVELS OF SELENIUM ON IMMUNITY IN GROWING NELLORE RAM LAMBS

An experiment was conducted on 24 male growing Nellore lambs with uniform body weight (15.75 ± 0.47 kg) which were randomly divided into four groups of six animals each. These animals were supplemented with 0, 0.45, 0.9 and 1.8 ppm Selenium, respectively by adding inorganic selenium in the form of sodium selenite in concentrate mixture .The humoral immune response against enterotoxaemia was higher in the selenium supplemented lambs than the unsupplemented lambs. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) among the groups for the humoral immune response. The titre values were highest in the group supplemented with selenium at 1.8 ppm (T4). The cell mediated immune response was significantly different (p<0.05) among the groups and the skin fold thickness (mm) was highest in the group supplemented with selenium at 1.8 ppm (T4) after 24 h of injection.