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Effect of Dietary Ca, Cu and Zn Level OIM body Weight Gain and Tissue Mineral Concentrations of Growing Pigs and Rats

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853^1,2,

Abstract

Thirty-two Yorkshire pigs (45 kg average initial weight) and 56 weanling Sprague-Dawley rats (45 g average initial weight) were used in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments to determine the effect of dietary Ca, Cu and Zn levels on body weight gain and tissue mineral concentrations. Dietary levels of Ca were .06 and 1.4%, levels of Cu were 10 or 210 ppm and levels of Zn were 15 or 75 ppm in the eight diets. Pigs were removed individually from the experiment when body weight reached approximately 90 kg. Liver, kidney and radius-ulna were removed at slaughter and analyzed for Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn and Zn concentrations. Rats were slaughtered on day 28 of the experiment and liver, kidney and testes were removed for the same analyses. Daily gain of pigs was not significantly affected by diet, although three of 16 pigs fed low Ca had to be removed during the experiment due to bone fractures. Liver Cu was higher (P<.01) and liver Fe lower (P<.01) in pigs fed high Cu compared with low Cu diets. There was no effect of diet on kidney or radius-ulna mineral concentrations in pigs, except for a higher (P<.05) level of Zn in the radius-ulna ash of pigs fed high-Zn diets compared with low-Zn diets. Daily gain, feed intake and gain/feed of rats were higher (P<.01) with high Ca than with low Ca diets; there was no effect of dietary Cu or Zn level on daily gain, feed intake or gain/feed. High dietary Cu increased (P<.01) kidney Cu; kidney Cu was increased (P<.01) and Fe decreased (P<.01) by high Ca diets compared with low Ca diets. Kidney Mn was higher in rats fed high-Zn diets than in those fed low-Zn diets. There was a Ca X Cu interaction effect on kidney Mn whereby dietary Cu was associated with an increase (P<.01) in kidney Mn at the high dietary Ca level but not at the low level. Diet had no effect on kidney Zn nor on testes Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg or Zn concentration in rats. It is concluded that diets severely deficient in Ca can be tolerated by the finishing pig and growing rat without drastic effects on growth rate or net uptake of tissue Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn and Zn even in association with wide variations in diet Cu and Zn levels.

¹ Department of Animal Science.

² The authors thank Allan Chandler, Charles Avery and Pauline Putney for animal care, Adenuga Onagoruwa for data summarization, Priscilla Lawrence for stenographic work and W.R.C. White and associates for pig slaughter and tissue collection.