Genotype-dependent impact of dietary vitamin D₃ on laying hens

ABSTRACT

Vitamin D₃ has an integral part in calcium and phosphorus homoeostasis, which in turn plays a key role in egg production of hens. The present study aimed to investigate whether an additional vitamin D₃ supplementation improves the laying performance and egg quality of hens according to their genetic potential. For this purpose, four layer lines (low performing: R11 and L68; high performing: WLA and BLA) supplemented either with 300 or 3000 IU vitamin D₃ per kg feed were compared concerning serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D₃ (25-OHD₃), calcium, phosphorus and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), laying performance and egg quality. The higher supplementation of vitamin D₃ increased 25-OHD₃ serum concentrations in all genotypes, except for R11 and WLA hens in week 49, and also elevated vitamin D₃ and 25-OHD₃ content in the egg yolk (p < 0.05). In week 29, 3000 IU vitamin D₃ decreased pooled least squares means (LSMeans) of serum calcium concentrations considering all genotypes and increased the ALP concentrations in BLA hens (p < 0.05). Considering the whole experimental period daily egg mass of R11 hens was increased by an additional vitamin D₃ supplementation (p < 0.001). Regarding all genotypes and the whole experimental period the pooled LSMeans of breaking strength of eggs from hens fed 3000 IU vitamin D₃ were higher than those of hens fed 300 IU (p = 0.044). In conclusion, present results give evidence that the higher vitamin D₃ supplementation might have genotype-dependently beneficial effects on calcium and phosphorus homoeostasis of hens, which might improve feed efficiency in the early laying period and promote the persistence of the laying period irrespectively of genotype. The increase of serum 25-OHD₃ by the higher vitamin D supplementation supported the higher transfer of vitamin D in the egg yolk and improved genotype-dependently the breaking strength of the eggshell.

KEYWORDS:

• Laying hens
• performance
• egg quality
• vitamin D₃
• calcium
• phosphorus
• alkaline phosphatase

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully thank the staff of the experimental facilities of the Institute of Farm Animal Genetics (ING), FLI in Neustadt, Germany and especially Silvia Wittig for the excellent animal care. In this context, we also acknowledge Annerose Junghans from the Institute of Animal Nutrition (ITE), FLI in Brunswick, Germany. Furthermore, we thank the ITE working group “Immuno-nutrition” and “Basic analytics” for the excellent laboratory work. Subsequently, the authors thanks all assisting doctoral students for their great help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/1745039X.2023.2212574.

Additional information

Funding

The present study was supported by the FLI within the project “Adapt Huhn”.