Blood samples were taken from 472 dead lambs on hill farms in Peeblesshire and their serum proteins fractionated by paper electrophoresis. No y-globulin was detected in 84% of the lambs dying on the day of birth, or in 43% of all other lambs aged 9 days or less. Most of these lambs had not fed. But a substantial minority, including 24·5% of all lambs dying, after walking, on the first or second days, i.e. when the gut is normally permeable to protein, had not absorbed γ-globulin despite having food in the gut. This could be due to a failure of colostral proteins to pass from the stomach into the small intestine, γ-globulin being detected relatively more often in lambs with food in their intestines than in lambs with food only in their stomachs; insufficient time between the arrival of food in the small intestine and death; or a premature loss of gut permeability.

The mean γ-globulin levels in lambs aged up to 6 days, excluding those with none, were significantly lower than in live lambs. Differences between older lambs were slight. Lambs aged up to 9 days and recorded as dying of starvation because they had no visceral fat, had significantly lower levels than lambs dying from other causes. The levels in older lambs were not correlated with the reasons for death.