Table 3. Body weight (BW), daily feed intake, urine volume and urinary mineral concentrations of cats fed a diet with different levels of dicalcium phosphate.

Mean and standard deviation, n = 10 / diet¹.

	Group (% Ca in DM)						Polynomial contrasts (P-values)
	0.6	0.8	1.5	1.9	2.2	2.4	Lin.	Quadr.
ᴓ BW (kg)	4.13 ± 1.32	4.00 ± 1.28	4.07 ± 1.29	4.10 ± 1.33	4.17 ± 1.31	4.11 ± 1.45	0.140	0.515
Feed intake (g DM/kg BW/d)	12.7 ± 2.39	13.1 ± 2.32	13.1 ± 3.07	13.5 ± 2.37	13.2 ± 2.45	12.7 ± 3.99	0.798	0.137
Urine volume (ml/kg BW/d)	6.38 ± 2.77	10.2 ± 3.55	9.44 ± 4.02	9.99 ± 2.83	9.51 ± 3.43	8.49 ± 2.52	0.216	0.002
Calculated urinary pH2	6.39			6.26			6.30			6.10			6.02			6.20
Urinary
Fasting pH	7.09 ± 0.29	6.52 ± 0.17	6.29 ± 0.29	6.10 ± 0.23	6.02 ± 0.08	6.22 ± 0.08	< 0.001	< 0.001
Postprandial pH	6.91 ± 0.23	6.68 ± 0.23	6.41 ± 0.51	6.17 ± 0.32	6.01 ± 0.22	6.19 ± 0.29	< 0.001	< 0.001
Ca (mg/l)	26.2 ± 21.9	19.1 ± 5.48	27.3 ± 9.64	25.8 ± 9.24	25.1 ± 8.28	24.6 ± 7.60	0.808	0.982
P (mg/l)	2321 ± 328	3075 ± 588	5638 ± 959	6316 ± 879	7111 ± 980	7206 ± 994	< 0.001	< 0.001
Sulphate (mg/l)	4009 ± 885	4117 ± 869	4585 ± 904	4457 ± 679	4191 ± 681	4215 ± 629	0.463	0.004
Ox (mg/l)	174 ± 32.7	151 ± 32.3	167 ± 40.0	138 ± 30.6	123 ± 15.6	126 ± 13.0	< 0.001	0.931
Citrate (mg/l)	133 ± 115	84.2 ± 52.9	41.5 ± 41.9	31.4 ± 26.4	38.5 ± 30.1	111 ± 83.6	0.006	0.001
Renal excretion
Ca (mg/kg BW/d)	0.13 ± 0.08	0.19 ± 0.05	0.25 ± 0.14	0.25 ± 0.10	0.23 ± 0.10	0.21 ± 0.09	0.052	0.019
P (mg/kg BW/d)	14.6 ± 6.68	30.0 ± 6.18	52.3 ± 20.9	62.5 ± 17.4	67.2 ± 25.7	61.3 ± 20.3	< 0.001	< 0.001

¹For the group 3.0% Ca: n = 8

² Calculated based on the base excess (BE) in the diet [20]: urinary pH = (BE*0.0021) + 6.72.