Relationship between mineral availabilities and dietary phytate in animals

A large amount of phosphorus (P) in corn and soybean meal is in the form of phytate that is poorly available to monogastric animals. It leads to the presence of large amounts of P in manure, which contributes to the P pollution problem. The fermentation of soybean meal with Aspergillus usamii almost completely degraded phytate and improved P availability in chicks. Although dietary yeast phytase increased P absorption and availability in pigs, its efficacy was less than that of Aspergillus niger phytase. It was suggested that the lesser efficacy of yeast phytase resulted from its lower stability against pepsin. Phytate suppresses zinc availability in monogastric animals. Zinc availability was improved by the substitution of regular soybean meal with fermented soybean meal and by the supplementation with Aspergillus niger phytase in pigs. It has been considered that phytate is easily degraded in the rumen and the availability of phytate P is high in ruminants. However, 20% of phytate in oilseed meals was not degraded in the rumen of sheep. Additionally, heating and formaldehyde treatments with oilseed meals suppressed ruminal degradation of phytate and approximately half of phytate escaped from ruminal degradation in the treated oilseed meals.