Canola meal and diet acid-base balance for broilers

Abstract

Experiments were undertaken to investigate the influence of dietary sulphur, calcium and altered anion-cation balance on the response of chicks fed soybean or canola meal diets.The addition of supplemental sulphur to a semi-purified soybean meal diet resulted in a marked decrease in feed intake and weight gain. Additional dietary calcium helped to alleviate the depression caused by excess dietary sulphur. Plotting dietary meq (ranging from −3.7 to +13.4) against weight gain suggested that anion–cation balance was responsible, in part, for the responses noted. Supplementing a canola meal semi-purified diet with sulphur, calcium and a mixture of potassium and sodium carbonate to alter diet anion–cation balance by 0, 10 and 20 meq confirmed that the interaction noted with dietary sulphur and calcium supplementation of soybean and canola meals diets is caused in large part by changes in anion–cation balance of the diet. Thus the present data confirm previous suggestions that part of the growth depression noted with canola meal supplemented diets is due to its high sulphur content and thus an altering of anion–cation balance. Key words: Broilers, canola meal, acid base balance, sulphur, sodium, calcium, potassium