Can vitamin E be reduced or replaced in animal feeds?

摘要

Vitamin E can be spared or replaced by other antioxidants, but never fully; this article explains why this vitamin is so important for animal growth and health.Vitamin E is an expensive vitamin, occasionally becoming very expensive. As such, most premix and feed manufacturers keep vitamin E supple-mentation under strict control. In my years of practice as a field nutritionist, I have seen feeds containing half the amount of vitamin E recommended by National Research Council (NRC) publications for monogas-tric animals. As expected, such diets caused severe problems, hence the need for consultation. At the same time, I have also experienced extremely high levels (up to 10-fold higher than NRC), without any obvious reason or beneficial result, and with a great cost to the animal producer. There is considerable noise around the use of vitamin E, and I believe it is important to set the stage right so that the correct level of this vitamin is used, for the right diet and for the right purpose. Below are six very important aspects relating to vitaminE thatevery nutrition professional should keep in mind when setting dietary specifications for this expensive nutrient.