Optimal dietary copper requirements and relative bioavailability for weanling pigs fed either copper proteinate or tribasic copper chloride

Table 7 Effect of amount and source of dietary copper on fecal micromineral concentrations of weanling pigs (mg/kg, as air-dry basis)

	Copper source¹	Copper level, mg/kg						Pooled SEM	P-value
	Copper source¹	0	20	40	80	160	200	Pooled SEM	Treatment	Linear	Quadratic
Fecal Cu	TBCC	121.30^f	280.10^e	415.37^d	656.00^c	917.14^b	1353.44^a	8.49	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Fecal Cu	CuPro	121.30^e	255.82^{d, *}	362.15^{c, *}	600.67^{b, *}	873.10^{a, *}	–	7.22	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Fecal Zn	TBCC	5720.19	5865.70	5729.98	5885.98	5786.74	5899.92	62.16	0.198	0.190	0.414
Fecal Zn	CuPro	5720.19	5928.12	5760.37	5883.88	5793.44	–	118.13	0.711	0.920	0.776
Fecal Fe	TBCC	3058.96	3051.32	2998.86	2989.07	2953.81	3042.00	98.57	0.963	0.685	0.668
Fecal Fe	CuPro	3058.96	2963.80	2964.34	3000.19	2976.71	–	57.77	0.754	0.605	0.740

^a-f Means within a row without a common superscript letter are different (P < 0.05)
* different from the corresponding TBCC group at the same supplemented copper level, P < 0.05
¹TBCC tribasic copper chloride, CuPro copper proteinate

ISSN: 2049-1891