Four hundred and twenty one day-old broilers, Cobb 500, were randomly allotted to 15 treatments with four replications (7 chicks/pen) in a 21-day battery trial to assess the relative availability of phosphorus (RBP) from three feeds with two different genetic characteristics (low phytic phosphorus or conventional). One semi-purified basal diet based on corn starch and soybean meal with the addition of conventional barley, barley with low phytate phosphorus, conventional corn, corn with low phytate phosphorus, conventional soybean meal, soybean meal with low phytate phosphorus and dicalcium phosphate in substitution for the corn starch to supply 0.05 or 0.10% supplementary phosphorus, totaling 15 diets [(3 × 2 × 2) + 3]. Live weight, weight gain, feed intake, and feed to gain ratio were determined weekly for each experimental unit. At the end of the experimental period (21 days), three broilers per pen were slaughtered to remove the left tibias to determine the bone ash content. The phosphorus bioavailability of the conventional corn, barley and soybean were 18.5, 50.9, and 34.4%, respectively whereas for low phytate phosphorus corn, barley and soybean meal values were observed of 93.5, 132.9, and 90.9%, respectively. Feed intake, weight gain and bone mineralization of broilers fed low phytate phosphorus diets were higher than the observed for conventional ingredient diets.
availability; barley; broiler chicks; corn; phosphorus; soybean meal
