Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; Processo FAPESP: 04/05833-1 ; Understanding mineral nutritional requirements is important to providing diets that appropriately meet animals' needs. This study estimates the net requirements of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), and potassium (K) for growing goats. Twenty Saanen kids with initial body weights (BWs) of 5 kg were used in this experiment. of these kids, five were slaughtered at the beginning of the experiment, representing the initial body weight. Another six were slaughtered at BWs of 12.5 kg, and the remainder were slaughtered at BWs of 20 kg. All of the animals were fed ad libitum with a diet consisting of 50% roughage and 50% concentrate, which was formulated to meet nutritional requirements for gains of 150 g/day, except those that were slaughtered at the beginning of the experiment. The experimental design was completely randomized and used three treatments (slaughter weights). Logarithmized allometric equations were used to calculate the relationships between macromineral quantities and empty body weights (EBWs), and these relationships were observed to be highly significant (P