Two hundred ten 1-d-old, (Ross 308 strain) broiler chicks were housed in a temperature controlled room with 5 birds per cage and randomly allocated to 1 of 7 dietary treatments for a 21 d study. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of feeding diets containing low phytate barley and pea vs. the normal phytate cultivars and the effects of inorganic P reduction on performance and bone characteristics of broiler chicks. The main feed ingredients used were: low phytate barley (LPB), low phytate pea (LPP), normal hull barley (NHB), normal phytate pea (NPP), and soybean meal (SBM). The dietary treatments included (1) Control that was SBM-NHB based with 100% inorganic P; (2) control with 50% inorganic P; (3) low phytate cultivars based on SBM-LPB-LPP with 100% inorganic P; (4) treatment 3 with 50% inorganic P; (5) treatment 3 with no addition of inorganic P; (6) normal phytate cultivars based on SBM-NHB-NPP with 100% inorganic P; (7) normal phytate cultivars with 50% inorganic P. Feed and water were offered ad-libitum throughout the study and average daily gain (ADG) and feed intake (ADFI) were determined weekly and used for calculating feed conversion ratio (FCR). On d 21, 2 birds per cage were killed to collect left tibias for bone length and ash determination. Data were subjected to ANOVA as a completely randomized design using Proc Mixed of SAS 9.2. In addition, orthogonal contrasts were used to compare diets 1 and 2 vs. the rest of the diets, to compare 100 vs. 50% inorganic P diets, and to compare diets with low phytate vs. the normal phytate grain cultivars. The reduction in dietary inorganic P content significantly decreased ADG and ADFI but had no effect on FCR. The ADG was 18 g/chick and lowest (P < 0.05) for treatment 7, whereas ADG was similar for treatments 1 3, and 6 that is, 38, 42, and 41 g/chick, respectively. The overall ADG tended (P < 0.10) to be higher for the low phytate compared with normal phytate diets. The tibia ash and length were significantly decreased with inorganic P reduction. The results indicate that feeding low phytate barley and pea based diets can replace 29% of supplemental inorganic P required in normal phytate cultivars.