Morphometry and mineralization of tibia bone as influenced by dietary phosphorus in broiler chicks

The influence of graded levels of dietary phosphorus was examined on skeletal status (tibia morphometry and mineralization) of broiler chicks. Eighteen tibia bones (6 per treatment) collected at the end of 0–21 d feeding trial containing three levels 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5% available phosphorus. Significantly (P<0.05) higher tibia width at long axis was observed with higher levels of dietary phosphorus content. However, fresh bone weight, dried bone weight, bone length, bone width at short axis, bone ash and bone phosphorus also showed a relatively similar trend due to various phosphorus levels, which could not reach upto significant level. Numerically higher tibia bone calcium was noticed with low dietary phosphorus content. The result of the study indicated that the broiler chickens required 0.30% available phosphorus in their diets for optimum skeletal status.