Availability of Calcium in Feed Grade Phosphates to the Chick

THE availability of the phosphorus content of feed grade phosphates has been reported by numerous workers. There is little information on the availability of the calcium content of these mineral supplements to chicks. A test was designed to determine if calcium availability values could be be assigned to feed grade phosphates. Twelve diets were fed from one day to three weeks of age to commercial strain broiler cockerels. Each diet was fed to replicate groups of 20 chicks each. The birds were maintained in electrically heated battery brooders with raised wire floors. Feed and water were provided ad libitum. The practical type basal diet was one previously used at this station in phosphorus availability studies (Dilworth and Day, 1964). This diet was primarily composed of degerminated corn meal and soybean meal (50% protein). The constant dietary ingredients represented 95% of the total with the remaining 5% being the test…