Calcium and Phosphorus Requirements of Broiler Chickens

Abstract

A FTER more than 35 years of investi->• gation, there is considerable disagreement in the literature as to the levels of calcium and phosphorus required for optimum performance of growing chickens. A review of the more pertinent literature by Lillie et al. (1964) indicates that the range of discordant values is being narrowed to some extent and that the calcium level recommended by the National Research Council is higher than that which many investigators found to be adequate for optimum growth. The majority of the recent investigations (Formica et al., 1961(Formica et al., , 1962Vanderpopuliere, 1961; Waldroup et al. 1962a, b;Simco and Stephenson, 1961;Lillie et al., 1964) have been aimed at refinement of the requirement of the growing chick in the light of current nutritional knowledge. Such was the motive for the experiment reported herein. EXPERIMENTAL A 5X4X2 factorial arrangement was employed in the design of the experiment. The three-factor design included five levels of total phosphorus (0.50, 0.55,0.60, 0.65, 0.70%), four levels of calcium (0,50, 0.60, 0.70, 0.80%) and two sexes (males and females reared separately). Sixty-four hundred sexed day-old VantressX Arbor Acres chicks were randomly distributed within sex into 20 groups of males and 20 groups of females. The 40 groups of 160 birds each were placed in individual floor

The Availability of Calcium from Mexican and Californian Sesame Meals

“…In this experiment 1.18% Ca produced the greatest gain but 1.0% was sufficient for normal feathering. These results are in agreement with those of Migicovsky et al (1947), and Twining et al (1965) who reported that when the dietary Ca was increased from very low levels, the bone ash improved. The effect of zinc was not consistent, since in the low and high Ca diets no significant differences were observed due to the zinc supplementation but in the inter- mediate Ca levels a significant difference was observed.…”

Calcium Requirement of Ducklings

“…The results of the present studies indicate a calcium requirement for ducklings that is appreciably lower than the 0.8-1.0% calcium required by the broiler chick (Ed-wards et al, 1963;Mehring and Titus, 1964;Twining et al, 1965). It appears that the duckling is similar to the gosling in terms of its calcium needs.…”

Effect of Various Prelaying Levels of Dietary Calcium Upon Subsequent Performance in Chickens

“…reported concerning the calcium requirements for growth and bone development of chicks (Hart et al, 1930;Twing et al, 1965;Itoh and Hatano, 1964) and the effect of dietary calcium upon the productive performance of laying hens (Deobald et al, 1936;Petersen et al, 1960;Mehring and Titus, 1964). However, relatively few and often very conflicting investigations have been reported concerning the calcium requirements of pullets from eight weeks to the onset of egg production and concerning the effect of calcium levels during the developing period upon the subsequent production.…”