This experimental research was conducted at the Poultry Section of the Animal Science Department at the Federal University of Santa Maria. The objective of this work was to evaluate the interactions between different levels of vitamins A (Retinol) and E (tocoferol), and their effect on broilers performance in two periods: 1-21 and 1-42 days of age. A total of 990 ROSS day-old male chicks were set. The trial was composed by 9 treatments, with 5 replicates of 22 birds each. An experimental design in blocks was employed in a factorial 32 (three levels of two vitamins). The levels of vitamins A and E were 5,000; 10,000 and 15,000UI and 10; 20 and 30mg kg-1 of diet, respectively. The parameters evaluated were: feed consumption, body weight, feed conversion and mortality. Feed comsumption, body weight and feed conversion were not affected by the increasing or loweing of the medium levels of the studied vitamins. Based in these results we can conclude that vitamins A and E , wich means 50% reduction of the levels used by poultry integration in South Brazil do not reduce the growing of broilers when compared to medium and high levels, which can lead to a reducing in the costs of production.
levels of vitamins; broilers; performance
