A simple spectrophotometric method for the direct determination of uric acid in avian excreta

A procedure was developed for the direct quantitation of uric acid in poultry excreta. It involved the determination of the absorbance of a perchloric acid extract of excreta at 285 nm. Interference from other ultraviolet absorbing material was shown to be negligible. The correlation (r) between this procedure and a recently developed high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure for uric acid content of excreta from birds fed different diets was .993 (P less than .01). It was concluded that this procedure provides a simple and reliable method for the quantitation of uric acid in avian excreta.