Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (7): 3327-3334.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.07.025

• Animal Nutrition and Feeds • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Dietary Folic Acid Levels on Production Performance, Plasma Biochemical Indicators and Antioxidant Capacity of Pekin Ducks from 1 to 21 Days of Age

HUO Zhen(), ZHUANG Lei(), ZHOU Wei, WANG Shuaiqin, XIE Ming, HOU Shuisheng*(), HOU Shuisheng*()   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding, Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
  • Received:2024-07-29 Online:2025-07-23 Published:2025-07-25
  • Contact: HOU Shuisheng, HOU Shuisheng E-mail:huozhen000000@163.com;zhuanglei96@163.com;houss@263.net;tangjing@caas.cn

Abstract:

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary folic acid levels on production performance, plasma biochemical indicators, and antioxidant capacity of Pekin ducks from 1 to 21 days of age, and to determine the folic acid requirement of Pekin ducks. The experiment adopts a completely randomized single-factor experimental design. A total of 640 1-day-old male Pekin ducks with similar body weight were randomly divided into 8 groups, 8 replicates per group, and 10 ducks per replicate. Ducks were fed experimental diets with folate levels of 0.16, 0.26, 0.36, 0.56, 0.76, 0.96, and 1.16 mg ·kg-1, respectively. The experiment lasted for 21 days. The results showed as follows: 1) Average body weight and average daily weight gain in the 0.76 mg ·kg-1 folic acid group were significantly higher than that in the 0.26, 0.36, and 0.56 mg ·kg-1 folic acid groups (P < 0.05). 2) With dietary folic acid level increasing, breast muscle percentage (P=0.098 8) and leg muscle percentage (P=0.075 3) has the trend of first increasing and then decreasing. 3) With dietary folic acid level increasing, plasma aspartate aminotransferase activities were significantly decreased, and plasma glucose level was significantly increased (P < 0.05). When folic acid level was 0.76 mg ·kg-1, there was no significant change in the above indexes. 4) The total antioxidant capacity of 0.16 and 0.36 mg ·kg-1 folic acid groups was significantly lower than that of 0.26 and 0.76 mg ·kg-1 folic acid groups (P < 0.05). The catalase activity of 0.16 and 0.26 mg ·kg-1 folic acid groups was significantly lower than that of 0.36, 0.56, 0.76, 0.96, and 1.16 mg ·kg-1 folic acid groups (P < 0.05). In conclusion, adding an appropriate level of folic acid to the diet could improve the production performance and antioxidant capacity of Pekin ducks. The recommended folic acid level in the diet for Pekin duck from 1 to 21 days of age under the condition of the current study is 0.76 mg ·kg-1.

Key words: folic acid, Pekin duck, requirement, production performance, plasma biochemical index, antioxidant capacity

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