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Relation Between Amount of Cesium¹³⁷ in Cows' Feedand Milk^{1, 2,}

Department of Animal Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis

ABSTRACT

As part of a study of the effect of feeding practices on radionuclide concentrations in cows' milk, the concentration of cesium¹³⁷ was measured in the feed and milk of experimental herds during May and June of 1963. Three groups of Jersey and Holstein cows that had been given stored feed were used. One herd continued eating stored feed, the second was placed on pasture and remained there, and the third was placed on pasture for 19 days and then returned to eating stored feed. Cesium¹³⁷ was determined in daily samples of pasture grass, hay, grain, silage, drinking water, air particulates, and milk by radiochemical and gamma spectral analyses. Food consumption and milk production were measured, and water and air intakes estimated. The intake of cesium¹³⁷ by the pastured cows was approximately ten times as great as that by the cows consuming stored feeds. Cesium¹³⁷ levels in milk were directly proportional to intake, in that 13% of cesium¹³⁷ was transferred to the milk. When the herd was returned from pasture to stored feed, cesium¹³⁷ in milk decreased rapidly; 59 and 36% of the total, respectively, had 0.8-day and 4-day half-times.

¹ Presented as Paper no. 129 at the Health Physics Society Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 15–18, 1964.

² Technical Paper no. 1892, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station.

³ I. R. Jones, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon; M. W. Carter, Southeastern Radiological Health Laboratory, Montgomery, Alabama; B. Kahn, P. J. Robbins, and C. P. Straub, Radiological Health Research Activities, DRH, Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.