• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.2
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• pp.68-76
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• 1984

A $2{\times}4$ factorial study was carried out to investigate the interaction of aflatoxin and vitamin $D_3$ in broiler chicks. The day-old 336 chicks were allocated to triplicate 8 treatments. The 0 or 0.5 ppm of aflatoxin $B_1$ (AFB) and 0, 500, 1,000 or 1,500 IU/Kg of vitamin $D_3$ (VD) were supplemented to the basal diet. There were no significant differences among treatments in respect to the body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion, shank color, mortality and incidence of weak legs. The utilization efficiencies of dry matter, crude protein, ether extract, N-free extract and crude ash showed also no significant differences among treatments, respectively. The mean utilization efficiency of crude fiber in AFB group was lower than that in normal groups (P<.01). However, no significant difference was found among groups fed different levels of VD, and no interaction between AFB and VD was found. The utilization efficiency of Ca in AFB group was somewhat higher than that in normal group without statistical significance, and the similar values were found among groups fed different VD. The utilization efficiencies of P and Na were not significantly different among treatments, respectively. The tibia ash appeared to be similar among treatments fed different levels of AFB and VD. However, the Ca content in tibia of birds fed 0.5 ppm of AFB was higher than that of normal chicks (P<.05). The slightly increasing trend was shown in Ca contents when fed increasing revel of VD, and the interaction between AFB and VD was recognized(P<.01). The P content of tibia was increased by feeding AFB(P<.05). However, there was no significant difference among groups fed different level of VD and no interaction between AFB and VD in respect to the P content of tibia. Feeding AFB did not affect the Na content in tibia. However, there was a highly significant difference among groups fed different levels of VD(P<.01), the highest values were at 1,000 IU/Kg group, and the interaction between AFB and VD was not significant. The Ca content in serum of birds fed AFB was higher than in control group (P<.01). The Ca of serum increased when fed more VD, although no significance was found among groups, and there was an interaction between AFB and VD(P<.05). The P content of serum showed no significant difference among treatments. The alkaline phosphatase activity in serum of chicks fed AFB was higher than that of control group (P<.01). The enzyme activity increased slightly with increasing level of VD, however, there was no interaction between AFB and VD.