The Relative Utilization of Certain Calcium Compounds by the Growing Chick

Abstract

Investigations reported by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station1 have shown that for the normal growth of chicks that were fed a ration consisting of yellow corn, middlings, casein, salt and .5 per cent cod liver oil, approximately 2 percent of calcium carbonate had to be added in order to obtain a normal ash content of the bones. Further experiments have indicated that for growing chicks, the calcium in calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, calcium lactate, tricalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, bone meal and certain rock phosphates, was equally available for bone formation, as judged by the bone ash method. These salts and minerals were fed in such quantities that the calcium intake in each case was equal to that contained in a quantity of calcium carbonate equivalent to 2 percent of the feed consumed. Buckner and Martin,2 in studying calcium metabolism of the growing chick, have reported results which show that tricalcium . . .