Effect of Vitamin D3 replacement with 1α-hydroxycholecalciferol on the performance of broiler breeder hens

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of 1α-hydroxycholecalciferol as a replacement for cholecalciferol on broiler breeder hen performance. 288 Ross "308" broiler breeder hens at 57 weeks of age were allocated to a randomized complete block design with six treatments and four replications of twelve females and 1 male each. The treatments consisted of 3500Iu/kg vitamin D3(Control),combination of 3340IU D3+10 g/Ton 1α(OH)D3, 3300IU D3+12.5 g/Ton 1α(OH)D3, 3260IU D3+15gr/Ton 1α(OH)D3, 3180IU D3+20 g/Ton 1α(OH)D3 and one additional group was fed no supplemental D3. The results of this study indicated egg production, egg mass, feed conversion, egg specific gravity, early and late embryo mortality and hatchability of the broiler breeder hens fed the vitamin D3 deficient basal diet was significantly lower than all other treatments (P<0.05). In addition to egg production, egg mass and feed conversion between treatments were significantly differ, and egg production was significantly lower when added as 20 g/Ton 1α(OH)D3 as compared to lower levels of the same metabolites and also as compared with the hens fed D3(P<0.05), however no differences were observed in egg weight, egg specific gravity, hatchability, early, middle and late embryo mortality and pip egg between treatments supplemented combination of vitamin D¬3 and 1α(OH)D3 as compared with D3 (P>0.05).The result of this experiment indicated that replacement of 1α(OH)D3 with D3 in broiler breeder diets have no beneficial effect on egg production, egg shell quality and hatchability. It seems, that hens are able to metabolize sufficient 1,25(OH)2D3 from dietary vitamin D3 to meet requirement.