Ileal Digestibility of Phosphorus in Plant Origin Feedstuffs Fed for Broiler Chickens: The Effect of Microbial Phytase

The study was conducted to determine the apparent and standardized ileal digestibility (AID and SID) of phosphorus (P) in plant origin feedstuffs of corn distiller's dried grains with solubles (corn DDGS), wheat bran (WB), wheat grain (WG), wheat middling (WM), soybean meal (SBM), canola meal (CNM), cottonseed meal (CSM), and peanut meal (PM), fed to total 612 male arbor acres broilers with or without microbial phytase. A 23 day-old birds with initial body weight (BW) of 939 +/- 8.89g were randomly allocated to a factorial 2 x 8 arrangement with a randomized complete block design of sixteen dietary treatments and one P-free diet, with six replicates (cage) and six birds/cage. A purified phosphorus-free (P-free) diet was also prepared to determined endogenous P loss (EPL). The ileal digesta were collected from euthanized birds and analyzed. The study results indicated that the SID of P in WB (38.46%), PM (37.98%), WG (36.90%), and WM (35.69%) was significantly lower (P < 0.001) than SBM (52.01%), corn DDGS (49.41%), CNM (47.02%), and CSM (46.09%) based diets. The Addition of microbial phytase to SBM and WM improved the SID of P by more than 40%, while the others improved by about 34.80%, which is from 31.55% in CNM to 37.77% in CSM. The least improvement was recorded in corn DDGS (5.12%). The feedstuffs ileal digestible P equivalent value of 1000 FTU/kg phytase was ranged from 0.2g to 1.6g. The ileal EPL of the current study was determined to be 46.28 mg/kg DMI. In conclusion, the application of microbial phytase and formulation of plant origin broiler diets based on SID of P can reasonably help to utilize phosphorus resources for reducing feed costs and minimize environmental pollution.