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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1505801
This article is part of the Research Topic Natural Compounds/Products and Livestock Productivity: Enhancing Antioxidant Levels, Gut Health, Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Disease Control View all 18 articles

Effects of vitamin C for in ovo feeding to broiler embryos on embryonic development, hatching process and chick's rectal temperature

Provisionally accepted
Shan Du Shan Du 1Jianchuan Zhou Jianchuan Zhou 1Xiang Ao Xiang Ao 1,2*Yufei Zhu Yufei Zhu 3*
  • 1 Techlex Food Co., Ltd., Chengdu, China
  • 2 School of Life Science and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, Sichuan Province, China
  • 3 DAYU Bioengineering (Xi'an) Industrial Development Research Institute, Xi’an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Maternal nutritional status is an important factor for affecting embryonic development and has persistent effects on postnatal chicks. Vitamin C (VC) plays an important role in embryonic and postnatal development involved in nutri-epigenetics. The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of in ovo feeding (IOF) of VC on embryonic development, egg hatching time and chick's rectal temperature. Trial 1 was under normal incubation without IOF procedure and designed for analyzing the characteristics of embryonic development and establishing the score standard of yolk absorption and rupture of shell membrane. Results have shown that the relative weight of embryo and residual yolk and the organ indexes were reliable for reflecting embryonic development. Trial 2 was set three groups including CON, NS and VC groups, and designed to detect the effects of IOF of VC on indicators in trial 1 and plasma biochemical indicators. At embryonic age 11 (E11), each egg was non-injected in CON group, injected 0.1 mL sterile normal saline in NS group and injected 0.1 mL sterile normal saline containing 3 mg vitamin C in VC group. The whole day of E21 was evenly divided into 3 time periods: early(incubation hours 480-488), middle(incubation hours 488-496 ) and late(incubation hours 496-504). Among CON, NS and VC groups, the percentage of early hatched chicks (egg hatching time) were 29.31%, 12.00% and 33.90%, respectively, and the proportion of early and middle hatching were 51.72%, 42.00% and 38.27%, respectively. The chick's rectal temperature was lower (P < 0.05) in VC group than that in CON and NS groups. Compared with NS group, the plasma biochemical indicators of ALP, TP, ALB, GLB, TBIL, TBA, UA, HDL-C and corticosterone (CORT) were lower (P < 0.05) and ALT had an increased trend (P = 0.059) in VC group. In conclusion, our data demonstrated that VC accelerated hatching process and reduced chick's rectal temperature, which may be related to the improvement of liver function and the changes of metabolism reflected by blood biochemical indicators.

    Keywords: vitamin C, In ovo feeding, Embryonic Development, Hatching time, Rectal Temperature

    Received: 03 Oct 2024; Accepted: 05 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Du, Zhou, Ao and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Xiang Ao, Techlex Food Co., Ltd., Chengdu, China
    Yufei Zhu, DAYU Bioengineering (Xi'an) Industrial Development Research Institute, Xi’an, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.