| Three experiments were conducted in a climatic chamber to determine the effects of vitamins D3 and C supplementation on performance, body temperature, and egg quality under thermoneutral temperature (24.8º to 27.0º C), a cyclic heat stress (26.2º C for 16 h and 32.1º C for 8 h) and a constant heat stress (30.0º to 32.0º C) for three weeks in each temperature. One hundred forty-four White Leghorn hens aged 31 weeks were used in a completely randomized design with a factorial arrangement of 3 x 3: vitamin D3 (2,500, 3,000, and 3,500 IU/kg) and vitamin C (0, 200, and 400 ppm), with a total of nine treatments with four replicates of four hens each. Parameters measured included feed intake (FI), feed:gain (FG), egg production (EP), egg weight (EW), egg mass... |
