Abstract: Objective: To observe the effect of diet supplemented with sheep or duck meat on water and salt metabolism in rats. Methods: Totally 70 three-weeks male SD rats were used as experimental subjects. After feeding for 4 days, 10 rats were scarified to collect blood. The 60 others were randomly divided into three groups to feed with diet supplemented with sheep meat, duck meat and soybean. The fecal water content, stool hardness, water intake amount and food intake amount of rats from each group were determined during the feeding process. Ten rats from each group were killed to collect blood at the 14th and 28th day during the feeding period, respectively. Serum vasopressin (AVP) and aldosterone (ALD) were measured by radioimmunoassay (RIA), and Na+, K+ and Cl－ were determined by automatic biochemical analyzer. Result: The stool hardness, water intake amount and food intake amount in rats fed sheep meat diet were higher than those in rats fed duck meat diet, but fecal water content in rats fed sheep meat diet was lower than that in rats fed duck meat diet. The two groups signicantly different in their water intake amounts at the 7th day. Compared with the soybean diet group, the serum levels of AVP and ALD exhibited an increase in sheep meat diet group, which reached up to (103.4 ± 13.10) pg/mL and (2.02 ± 0.37) ng/mL at the 14th day, and (87.67 ± 3.78) pg/mL and (2.39 ± 0.34) ng/mL at the 28th day; in contrast, exhibited a decrease in duck meat diet group, which were (90.98 ± 5.33) pg/mL and (1.67 ± 0.32) ng/mL at the 14th day, and (72.36 ± 11.24) pg/mL and (1.89 ± 0.35) ng/mL at the 28th day, respectively (at the 14th day, P＜0.05; at the 28th day, P＜0.01). In addition, a significant lower serum Na+ content in the sheep meat diet group was observed when compared with the duck meat group (P＜0.05) after 14 days of feeding; in contrast, a higher level of serum Na+ in the sheep meat diet group was observed at the end of 28th day. Serum K+ was decreased significantly in sheep meat diet group when compared with the duck meat diet group (P ＜ 0.05) in the feeding period of 14 days. Similarly, during the feeding period of 14 days, the serum Cl－ in the soybean diet group were significantly higher than that of the sheep meat diet group and duck meat diet group; the ratio of Na+/ K+ in soybean diet group was significantly higher than the sheep meat group. Conclusion: These investigations suggested that sheep meat diet could increase AVP and ALD level, while duck meat diet could decrease AVP and ALD level to some extent. The physiological function of water release was limited during feeding period of sheep meat diet and increased during feeding period of duck meat diet.

Key words: feed, heep meat, duck meat, soybean, water and salt metabolism