Rock phosphate in swine diets formulated according to the available phosphorus

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of the same level of available phosphorus, in different sources of phosphates in the swine performance. One hundred and forty-four crossbred swines (Landrace x Large White), both sexes, from 22.0 to 99.2 kg of body weight were used. The treatments, in a completely randomized design, were based on corn-soybean meal diets with bicalcium, tapira, patos and goiás phosphates. The diets were isoproteic and isocaloric. The performance of the pigs fed bicalcium and tapira phosphates were similar (P > 0.05) in all experimental period but the performance of the pigs fed bicalcium phosphate were different (P < 0.05), whereas the tapira phosphate was similar (P > 0.05) to the patos and goiás phosphates. The average daily gain and feed gain ratio were 804 and 2.83, 750 and 2.89, 650 and 2.88, 629 g and 3.04, respectively. The ash percentage in the third metacarpals was significantly different (P < 0.05) for the same available phosphorus, with 49.80; 50.43; 52.29 and 48.46%, respectively. The rock phosphate from patos and goiás must be decreased in fluorine concentration, to improve the utilization of these phosphates in the swine diets.