Phenotype: Stumblepox is an inherited disorder of metabolism in drakes.
Drakes homozygous for the recessive stumblepox allele (stpx/stpx) typically exhibit symptoms prior to maturity.
The disease gets its name from cutaneous and neurologic abnormalities: scale loss, skin lesions, and acute intermittent ataxia.
Biochemically, drakes with stumblepox exhibit ketolactic acidosis and waste excretion of 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid, beta-methylcrotonylglycine, and 3-hydroxypropionic acid.
The symptoms of stumblepox resemble those of scale rot and are mimicked by feeding drakes an excess of powdered egg white, which contains avidin, a biotin-binding protein.
As with scale rot, treatment of stpx/stpx drakes with oral biotin supplementation completely reverses the symptoms.
Phenotype Terms:
behavior/neurological phenotype
integument phenotype
metabolism phenotype
mortality
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