Bioavailability of manganese from feed grade manganese oxides for broiler chicks

An experiment was conducted to study the relative biological availability of Mn from inorganic Mn sources using 288, 1-day-old male Cobb feather-sexed chicks. Chicks were fed a basal corn-soybean meal diet (82.5 ppm Mn, as-fed basis) ad libitum or the basal diet supplemented with 0, 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 ppm Mn from reagent grade (RG) MnSO4.H2O, MnO RG, or feed grade (FG) Oxide A, B, or C for 21 days. Bone and kidney Mn concentrations were used to estimate bioavailability. Manganese source and level had no effect on chick performance. Uptake of dietary Mn by bone and kidney from all sources was highly linear (P less than .001). Based on multiple linear regression slopes from bone Mn concentrations, the relative bioavailability values of MnO RG and MnO FG A, B, and C were 81.9 +/- 6.0, 93.1 +/- 6.7, 75.0 +/- 3.6, and 70.3 +/- 5.7, respectively, compared with 100% for MnSO4; those based on kidney Mn were 85.7 +/- 7.9, 68.0 +/- 7.5, 52.2 +/- 4.2, and 53.0 +/- 7.3, respectively.