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Story in: September-2025

Story: Maximize animal health and performance with the best vitamins

Maximize animal health and performance with the best vitamins

Vitamins are the foundation of balanced animal nutrition. They are essential, non-renewable micronutrients that are required for normal physiological functions, including growth, development, and reproduction, as well as for the well-being and general health of the animal. Most vitamins cannot be synthesized by animals and must be obtained through the diet; however, diet alone is not sufficient to ensure proper vitamin status. This is due to multiple factors, such as low or variable vitamin levels, limited bioavailability, storage conditions, and treatments applied to the feed during feed production. This can lead to a decrease in the vitamin status of animals. Lower animal performance, poor health and disease resistance, reduced reproductive success, and even mortality are some of the consequences of vitamin deficiencies that can have a serious cost impact on animal production. To overcome this challenge, producers are encouraged to check the vitamin levels of their diets and integrate high-quality vitamin supplements to ensure that nutritional requirements are met.

A challenge to overcome. When adding vitamins to valuable animal feed, a balanced nutritional approach must take into account a number of factors. This often means that determining the correct levels of vitamins is a complex and challenging process. And, given the potential consequences of vitamin deficiencies or suboptimal levels, producers are under increasing pressure to get nutrient levels right.

A key influencing factor is a genetics. Modern genetic improvements have increased animal growth and performance, which has had a significant impact on vitamin requirements. Due to the ongoing genetic change in domesticated animals, experts estimate that overall vitamin requirements are likely to increase by 1% annually. For example, feeding the same levels of vitamins to animals in 1995 could result in a reduction in vitamin intake per unit of meat and a reduction in egg production of up to 33%. Vitamin requirements are also affected by the interactive effects of each vitamin. For example, fat-soluble vitamins must be fed in the correct ratio as they compete for intestinal absorption. At the same time, the B-group vitamins regulate the metabolism of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, and a deficiency in any one of these vitamins increases the need for one of the others. Other factors affecting vitamin levels include disease, confinement, restricted feeding, vitamin antagonists, air quality, and temperature.

Although achieving the right vitamin levels is difficult, achieving the right vitamin levels is essential and provides many important benefits, including optimal animal health, well-being and performance, and improved meat quality. For example, many studies have shown that the positive effect of vitamin E at the nutritional level is on increased immunity and later meat quality. Optimizing vitamin levels also makes commercial sense - vitamins represent less than 2% of the feed cost per animal, or euro cents, yet have a significant impact on growth, health, and reproduction. Finding cost-effective, safe vitamin supplements therefore ensures increased animal production and better profits for farmers. -Editor, based on online information 

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