Pre-caecal digestible phosphorus in maize and wheat for broiler chickens

ABSTRACT

1. The objective of this study was to determine the coefficient of pre-caecal digestion of P in maize (3.9 g/kg of total P, 0.83 g/kg of phytate P, 138 FTU [phytase units]/kg) and wheat (3.17 g/kg of total P, 1.94 g/kg of phytate P, 666 FTU/kg) in broilers according to the WPSA protocol.

2. For the diets, monosodium phosphate was used as an additional P supplement. Two sets of diets containing 200, 460 and 740 g/kg of wheat or 200, 500 and 740 g/kg of maize were formulated. A total of 288 21-d-old male broilers (Ross 308) were assigned to 24 cages (8 birds per cage) and the 6 test diets were assigned to cages. The coefficient of pre-caecal digestion of P was determined by the indicator method and linear regression.

3. In both ingredients, pre-caecal digestible P increased linearly with increasing inclusion levels of maize or wheat (P < 0.05). The coefficients of digestion of pre-caecal P were estimated to be 0.18 for wheat and 0.33 for maize.

KEYWORDS:

• Broilers
• maize
• phosphorus
• pre-caecal digestibility
• wheat

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful for consultations and useful advice provided by Prof Dr Markus Rodehutscord and would like to thank the laboratory in Mikrop Cebin a.s., namely Pavel Michelle and his team (Mikrop, Cebin, Czech Republic), for help with the P and Cr₂O₃ analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Agronomy, Mendel University in Brno; [Ip 26/2016]; Ileal Digestibility of Phosphorus in Plant Feeds in Broilers according to WPSA Protocol.