Supra-nutritional Levels of Selected B Vitamins in Animal or Vegetable Diets for Broiler Chicken

• Published in: Brazilian Journal of Poultry Science 2020-01, Vol.22 (3)
• Main Authors: Suckeveris, D, Burin Jr, A, Oliveira, AB, Nascimento Fº, MA, Pereira, R, Luvizotto Jr, JM, Bittencourt, LC, Hermes, RG, Menten, JFM
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AGRICULTURE, DAIRY & ANIMAL SCIENCE; Animal by-product; B vitamins complex; Dietary nutrient density; ORNITHOLOGY; Performance parameters, Vegetable diet
• ISSN: 1516-635X; 1806-9061; 1806-9061
• DOI: 10.1590/1806-9061-2019-1024

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of supra-nutritional level of selected B vitamins in different types of diet on broiler performance. Two experiments were conducted using male and female one-day-old chicks (n=288 each; initial body weights in experiment I and II was, respectively, 47.57 ± 0.43, and 47.98 ± 0.31) reared in batteries up to 18 days. In experiment I, the chicks were fed a corn and soybean meal-based diet and, in experiment II, a diet containing oxidized animal by-product meals and soybean oil was used. Both experiments followed a completely randomized design in a 3 × 2 factorial arrangement, consisting of the factors: i) supplementation levels of selected B vitamins (control, 3- or 6-times control of the vitamins riboflavin, pantothenic acid, niacin, folic acid and vitamin B12); ii) dietary nutritional density (low or high), totaling 6 treatments and 8 replicates of 6 birds each (3 males and 3 females). As result of this study, in Exp. I, chicks showed higher weight gain (741.1 g vs. 697.3 g) and feed intake (920.2 vs. 878.5 g) when fed low-nutritional density diet with supra-nutritional vitamin level 6-times higher than the control. However, this effect was not found in the performance of chickens fed high-nutritional density diet. Despite the poor quality of the ingredients used in Exp. II, no statistical effect was shown of the use of vitamin super-dose in rations with different dietary nutrient density. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was significantly improved for chickens fed high-nutritional density diet (1.191 vs. 1.246 in experiment I, 1.244 vs. 1.275 in experiment II, p