Vitamins are essential micronutrients the body requires in small quantities for various roles. When included in poultry feed, vitamins play significant roles in the physiological and metabolic processes of poultry. Different vitamins perform different functions in the animal’s body. For instance, vitamin A is necessary for good feathering, egg production and good growth. A severe deficiency of vitamin A in poultry gives the birds an appearance that resembles suffering from chronic respiratory disease, a cold, or other kinds of diagnostics. Other symptoms such as nasal discharge, edema of the face, and so on, may be visible in vitamin A deficient chickens. Accumulated lines of evidence indicated that nanotechnology, a new technique that involves the manipulation of particles into tiny bits of between 1-100 nanometer (nm), is able to increase the efficiency of nanominerals such as chromium and selenium on poultry performance. However, the effects of nanoparticle vitamins on poultry production have not been elucidated. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of nanoparticle vitamins and commercial vitamin on broiler chickens performance. Two vitamin products, nanoparticle vitamin (containing vitamin A, D3, E, K3, B1, B2, B12 and C) and commercial vitamin (content unknown) were evaluated on a total of 330 one-day-old male broiler chickens (Arbor Acres). Birds were randomly assigned to 0 (control, 1000ml drinking water), 1000x (1ml vitamin+1000ml drinking water) and 2000x (0.5ml vitamin+1000ml drinking water) groups of commercial vitamin and nanoparticle vitamin with three replicates per treatment (18 chickens per cage) for 35 day. All chickens were fed a basal diet formulated according to the National Research Council (NRC 1994) standard. On day 7 and 14, all the chickens were vaccinated against Newcastle disease and infectious bronchitis (IB). Body weight of individual chickens in every group (18 birds/group) and average feed intake per group was measured and recorded. In addition, the metabolism and absorption of vitamin A was examined during the experiment. A total of 72 one-day-old male broilers (Arbor Acres) were randomly assigned to 4 cages and fed a basal diet for 28 days. On the 28th day, 60 chickens were randomly selected and force fed with nanoparticle vitamins and commercial vitamins; after which the birds were sacrificed and blood and livers samples were collected for analysis. At the end of the experiment (35 days), 5 chickens per group were randomly selected and sacrificed and their organs were collected and weighed immediately and the breast and thigh meat was analyzed after sacrifice. Blood and liver samples were collected and stored at -20°C until processed. The parameters measured included: growth rate, feed intake, feed conversion, immune response, organ weights, blood vitamin A, liver vitamin A, blood biochemistry, and breast and thigh searing force. The results showed that the body weight gain of 2000x, 1000x and 2000x commercial vitamin groups were significantly higher than that of the control. In addition, feed conversion ratio results showed that 2000x commercial vitamin and 2000x nanoparticle vitamins were significantly higher than the control. In addition, all treatments except for 1000x commercial vitamin had a significantly higher liver weight than the control. Apart from the body weight, feed conversion ratio, and liver weight, no other significant differences were obtained from other parameters that were measured. Therefore, this study was able to demonstrate that using 2000x of both the nanoparticle vitamin and the commercial vitamin can enhance the growth performance of broilers. When considering feed efficiency as a factor for production, this study showed that using 2000x nanoparticle vitamin and 1000x and 2000x commercial vitamin is sufficient to enhance a good feed utilization of broilers.
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