Vitamin C in broiler diets
1996
Bunan, A.A. | Luis, E.S. (Philippines Univ. Los Banos, College, Laguna (Philippines). Inst. of Animal Science)
Three series of trials were conducted using 1-week old broiler chicks to evaluate the effect of dietary vitamin C supplementation on the performance of broiler chickens during the hot dry (HD, May-June 1992), hot wet (HW, Aug-Sep 1992) and cold dry (CD, Dec 1992-Jan 1993) months of the year. In all trials, 0, 200 or 400 mg Vitamin C per kg feed was added to corn-soy based diets. Results of the three trials showed no significant (P greater than 0.05) season x vitamin C level interaction on body weight, feed consumptiom, feed efficiency, dressing percentage and relative weights of gizzard, liver, heart and spleen of broilers. Likewise, different levels of vitamin C in the diet showed no significant (P greater than 0.05) effect on all parameters measured. Moreover, there was no significant (P greater than 0.05) season effect on body weight, feed consumption and dressing percentage. The differences in feed efficiency with season, although not significant, may have been due to the poor quality of corn used in the last two weeks of feeding of the birds raised in the HD season. Serum vitamin C level showed significant (P greater than 0.05) season x vitamin C level interaction at seven weeks of age. A significant (P greater than 0.05) linear trend in serum vitamin C was observed in birds raised during the HD season while a (P greater than 0.05) quadratic trend was observed in serum vitamin C levels in birds raised during the HW season. The results of this study showed that for balanced corn-soy based diets, there is no further need for vitamin C supplementation during the HD, HW, and CD seasons for broilers
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