Effects of maternal dietary 25-hydroxycholecalciferol and progeny dietary vitamin premix on progeny performance, immune responses and bone quality of broiler chicks

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of maternal dietary 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25-OH-D-3) supplementation on egg production, hatchability, progeny performance, immune function and bone quality, when the progeny was fed diets with or without vitamin premix. A 2x2 factorial arrangement was used. A total of 1152 breeder hens aged 43 wk were selected and allotted to the 2 treatments with or without 25-OH-D-3 addition (0.069 mg/kg). The eggs at 18 wk of trial were hatched and 120 newly hatched progeny from each breeder treatment were randomly divided into 2 groups with 6 replicates of 10 birds and fed the diets with or without progeny vitamin premix (NRC recommendation for starter) for 28 d. As results, the maternal dietary 25-OH-D-3 did not affect the reproductive performance of breeder hen, but increase the Ca level in progeny tibia at 1 d of age. Vitamin premix in progeny diet improve the growth performance, immune characters, and bone quality of progeny broilers, and decrease the variation of body weight among the individuals.