SIGNIFICANCE OF VITAMINS IN ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

SIGNIFICANCE OF VITAMINS IN ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

¹Dr. Manisha Singodia and ²Dr. Lokesh Tak

¹ Department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension Education, RAJUVAS, Bikaner

²Department of livestock products technology, RAJUVAS, Bikaner

Introduction 

                   Proper animal nutrition is key to successful livestock production. Good nutrition can increase feed efficiency and the rate of gain in animals. Animals must be fed diets that meet their needs. If their needs are not properly met, the animals won’t grow, reproduce, or produce milk, and they could possibly die.

Vitamins are organic compounds required in tiny amounts for essential metabolic reactions in a living organism. Absence or deficiency of vitamins causes deficiency disorder. Vitamins may be classified based on their solubility as fat soluble vitamins and water soluble vitamins.

• Fat-soluble vitamins include vitamin A, D, E and K.
• Water-soluble vitamins include vitamin B complex group and vitamin C.
• The B complex groupof vitamins includes the following:
  • Vitamin B1 (thiamin)
  • Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
  • Vitamin B3 (Niacin/Nicotinamide/Nicotinic acid)
  • Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)
  • Panthothenic acid
  • Folic acid
  • Vitamin B12 (Cyano cobalamine)
  • Biotin
  • Choline

Vitamin Reserves

The body’s stores of vitamins from previous food intake will affect the daily requirements for these nutrients. This is true for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E and for vitamin B12 than for the other water-soluble vitamins and vitamin K. Vitamin A may be stored by an animal in its liver and fatty tissue in sufficient quantities to meet requirements for periods of up to 6 months or even longer.

Vitamin Antagonists and Other Nutrients

Vitamin antagonists (antimetabolites) interfere with the activity of various vitamins. The antagonist may cleave the metabolite molecule and render it inactive, which is the effect of thiaminase on thiamin; it may complex with the metabolite, with similar results, as illustrated by avidin and biotin; or its structural similarity may allow it to occupy rection sites and block the metabolite’s access to them, as is the case with dicumarol and vitamin K. Rancid fats inactivate biotin and destroy vitamins A, D and E, and possibly others. Some antimicrobial drugs will increase animals’ vitamin needs by altering their intestinal microflora and inhibiting the synthesis of certain vitamins. Certain sulfonamides may increase the requirements for biotin, folacin, vitamin K and possibly other vitamins when intestinal synthesis is reduced. The presence of vitamin antagonists in animal and human diets should be considered in adjusting vitamin allowances, as most vitamins have antagonists that reduce their utilization. The level of fat in the diet may affect the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A. D. E and K, as well as the requirement for vitamin E and possibly other vitamins. Fat-soluble vitamins may fail to be absorbed if the digestion of fat is impaired. Many relationships exist between vitamins and other nutrients and they affect requirements. For example, important relationships exist between vitamin E and selenium, between vitamin D and calcium and phosphorus, between choline and methionine and between niacin and tryptophan.

Vitamin Supplementation

Livestock –

• Vitamin requirements, as previously noted, are highly variable among the various species and classes of animals.
• Supplementation allowances need to be set at levels that reflect different management systems and that are high enough to take care of fluctuations in environmental temperatures, energy content of feed, or other factors that might influence feed consumption or vitamin requirements in other ways.

Ruminants–

• Grazing ruminants generally only need supplemental vita min A if pastures are low in carotene and possibly vitamin E (influenced by selenium status).
• Vitamin D is provided by ultraviolet light activity on the skin, while all other vitamins are provided by ruminal or intestinal microbial synthesis.
• Ruminants housed under more strict confinement conditions generally require vitamins A and E and may require vitamin D if deprived of sunlight. Additional supplemental vitamin E is needed to stabilize the meat color of finishing animals.
• Under specific conditions relating to stress and high productivity, ruminants may benefit from supplemental B vitamins.
• Particularly thiamin and niacin. Biotin deficiency has been linked to lameness in cattle. Increased plasma biotin levels have been associated with hardness and positive conformational changes in bovine hooves as well as increased milk production. Future research may identify a need for folacin and carnitine supplementation. Adding a complete B-vitamin mixture for cattle entering the feedlot during the first month can reduce stress and increase gains. Under the stressful conditions of feedlots, the microbial population in the rumen apparently does not synthesize certain B vitamins at adequate levels.

Poultry –

• Poultry under intensive production systems are particularly susceptible to vitamin deficiencies. The reasons for this susceptibility are as follows:

(1) poultry derive little or no benefit from microbial synthesis of vitamins in the gastrointestinal tract;

(2) poultry have high requirements for vitamins; and

(3) the high density concentration of modern poultry operations places many stresses on the birds that may increase their vitamin requirements.

• Typical grain oilseed meal (e.g., corn-soybean meal) poultry diets are generally supplemented with vitamins A, D (D), E, K. riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, B₁₂ and choline.
• Thiamin, vitamin B6, biotin and folacin are usually, but not always, present in adequate quantities in the major ingredients such as corn-soybean meal-based diets. Carnitine may be found to be of value in future studies.
• Vitamins A, D, riboflavin and B₁₂ are usually present at low levels in poultry diets. However, adding other vitaminsto poultry diets is good insurance. Vitamins D and B12 are almost completely absent from diets based on corn and soy bean meal.
• Vitamin K is generally added to poultry diets more than to the diets for other species because of the lower level of intestinal synthesis that occurs in birds owing to their shorter intestinal tract and the faster rate of food pas sage. Birds in cages require more dietary K and B vitamins than those in floor housing because of the more limited opportunity for coprophagy.

Swine-

• Vitamin supplementation of swine diets is obviously necessary with vitamin needs having become more critical in recent years as complete confinement feeding has increased.
• Swine in confinement, without access to vitamin-rich pasture, and housed on slatted floors, which limits vitamins available from feces consumption, have greater needs for supplemental vitamins.
• For swine, the vitamins most likely to be marginal or deficient in corn-soybean diets are vitamins A, D, E, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid and B12 and occasionally also vitamin K and choline.
• Almost all swine diets in the United States are now fortified with vitamins A, D. E. B, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid and choline.
• An increasing number of feed manufacturers are also adding vitamins K, biotin, folacin and B to diets. Diets are fortified with these vitamins even though not all experiments indicate a need for every one of them.
• Most feed manufacturers add them as a precaution to take care of stress factors, subclinical disease level and other conditions on the average farm that may increase vitamin needs. It appears that carnitine supplementation of weaning pigs may have potential.

Horses-

• There is a lack of experimental information on the level of vitamins required in well-balanced horse diets, as well as on which vitamins need to be added.
• The vitamins most likely deficient for all classes of horses are vitamins A and E, with vitamin D also being deficient for horses in confinement.
• Inadequate vitamin D may be provided to racehorses that are exercised only briefly in the early morn ing, when sunlight provides less antirachitic protection. Requirements for vitamins A, D, and E can be met with a high-quality (e.g., green color) sun-cured hay.
• Deficiencies of vitamin K and the B vitamins appear to be less likely in the mature horse than in other monogastric species because many vitamins are synthesized in the caecum of the horse.
• It is not known, however, what quantities of the vitamins synthesized in the cecum are absorbed in the large intestine. Since it is difficult to depend on intestinal synthesis, many horse owners use B-vitamin supplementation of diets for young horses and for horses being developed for racing or performance purposes.
• https://www.pashudhanpraharee.com/importance-of-minerals-in-animal-feeding/

https://open.oregonstate.education/animalnutrition/chapter/chapter-13/

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