Effect of vitamin C enriched water on growth performance and, feed and water intake of broiler chicken.

Abstract

Objectives of this study were to determine the effects of vitamin c enriched water on water intake and growth performance of broiler chicken. Twelve days old broiler chicks (n=l 68) were allocated into 6 cages. Each cage had two drinkers and a feeder. Cages were randomly allocated into two treatments. Birds in treatment 1 received normal water while the birds in treatment 2 received vitamin C enriched water. The level of vitamin c in enriched water was 100 ppm. The placement of the drinkers within cages was kept constant throughout the experiment. Daily water intakes, feed intake and weekly live weight were recorded for three weeks from I 3-34d. The daily water intake of the birds who received vitamin C enriched water (159.07 ml/bird/day) from 13-20d was significantly (p<0.01) higher than that of the birds who received nom1al water (treatment 1) (15lml/bird/day). However, the intake of water in both treatments became similar after day 20. Similarly, from 13-20 d, birds receiving Vitamin C enriched water ingested higher (p=0.08) amount of feed (75.0g/bird/day) than that of the birds who received normal water (72.2g/bird/day). Feed intake values were also not significantly different between treatments after day 20. On day 20, live weight of the birds who received vitamin C enriched water (662.8g) was also tend to be (p=0.11) higher than that of the birds who received normal water ( 651.1 g). However, as in the case with feed intake and water intake, there was no significant effect of water enrichment with vitamin C on live weight after day 27 and 34, feed conversion ratios and total feed intakes. It was concluded that feed intake and growth performance of broiler chicks from day 13-20 could be increased by giving water supplemented with 100 ppm of vitamin C.