Abstract:
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of choline folic acid and vitamin B12 on productive performance, egg quality, phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) concentration in yolk. This study was divided into two experiments. Experiment 1: 840 ISA brown layers, age 44 weeks, were randomly allocated into 5 groups of 6 replicates with 28 layers each. Layers in each group were assigned to feed each treatment diet for 6 weeks. The 5 treatment diets were group 1 basal diet that contained choline at breed recommendation level and groups 2-5 basal diet supplemented with choline at level of 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 mg/kg diet, respectively. Experiment 2: 288 ISA brown layers, age 72 weeks, were randomly allocated into 9 groups of 4 replicates with 8 layers each. Layers in each group were assigned to feed each treatment diet for 8 weeks. The 9 treatment diets were group 1 basal diet supplemented with choline level that gave the highest PC concentration result in experimental 1 and groups 2-9 basal diet supplemented with folic acid and vitamin B12 at the level of 0×0.02, 0×0.04, 4×0, 4×0.02, 4×0.04, 8×0, 8×0.02 and 8×0.04 mg/kg diet, respectively. Productive performances data were collected throughout the experimental periods. While egg quality, and phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) concentration were evaluated and analyzed at the end of the experiment. Supplementation of choline in experimental 1 and folic acid or vitamin B12 or combination in experiment 2 did not effect on productive performance: body weight change, mortality, egg production, egg weight, egg mass, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and feed cost/kg egg (P>0.05) and egg quality: Haugh units, yolk color, yolk weight, albumin weight and shell weight (P>0.05). Choline supplementation at the level of 1,500 mg/kg diet gave the highest yolk PC (P<0.0001) and lowest yolk PE concentration (P<0.0001) while the higher level (2,000-2,500 mg/kg diet) did not show any improvement. Folic acid and/or vitamin B12 supplemented in basal diet that contained choline 1,500 mg/kg did not give any benefit on yolk PC and PE concentration (P>0.05). In conclusion, the highest PC and lowest PE concentrations in yolk were detected when choline was supplemented at the level of 1,500 mg/kg diet over breed recommendation. While supplementation of folic acid or vitamin B12 or combination of both vitamins in diet contained choline 1,500 mg/kg diet could not show any benefit on PC and also on productive performance and egg quality.