Vitamin A deficiency or critical excess has negative effects on the growth performance, slaughter performance, and meat quality of goslings

Abstract

Abstract Vitamin A (VA) is an essential nutrient for the normal growth and development of animals. Our previous research showed that the optimum dietary VA supplementation for goslings was 9000 IU/kg. This study evaluated the effects of VA deficiency (VAD) or VA critical excess (VACE) on the growth performance, slaughter performance, meat quality, and serum hormone content of goslings relative to those of a VA suitability (VAS) group. A total of 180 healthy, one-day-old male Jiangnan White goslings were randomly divided into 3 treatment groups (0, 9000, and 15,000 IU VA/kg) with 6 pens containing 10 goslings each. On days 14, 28, 42, 56, and 70, growth performance and serum hormones were measured. On day 70, 1 gosling from each pen (6 geese per treatment) was randomly selected and used to measure slaughter performance and meat quality. The results showed that starting from the 28th day, the body weight (BW) and liveability of goslings in the VAD and VACE groups were lower than those of goslings in the VAS group (P 0.05). No additional VA in geese diets increased the breast muscle cooking loss or L* and b* values (P