Five hundred and four 1-day-old Cobb broiler chickens were randomly allotted to 18 treatments and fed a semi-purified basal diet (4 g/kg total phosphorus) supplemented with 2 levels of supplemental P (0.5 or 1 g/kg) during 21 days to evaluate performance and bone mineralization; to assess the relative bioavailability of P (RBP) in wheat meal (WM) and roasted (RS) or extruded soybean meal (ES), with or without phytase (0 or 750 ftu/kg diet), using dicalcium phosphate (DC) as standard; and to estimate phosphorus excretion. Weight gain (WG), feed intake (FI), feed to gain ratio (FG), and tibia ash weigh (AW) were assessed. For each source, the RBP was calculated by the slope ratio method, when tibia ash weight was regressed on P ingested. Ingested and fecal P... |