Effects of vitamin A supplementation in local free range chickens vaccinated with Newcastle disease vaccine in Wami Dakawa, Morogoro, Tanzania

Abstract

Vitamin A is required for normal growth, reproduction and maintenance of epithelial cells chicken’s tissues. In this study, the effect of vitamin A supplementation in chickens immunized with Newcastle disease virus vaccine (strain I-2) was investigated in free range local chickens in Wami-Dakawa, Morogoro region. A total of 40 chickens were divided into four groups with ten birds each namely, Group I, II, III and IV. Group I was treated vaccination and vitamin A, group II were neither vaccinated nor supplemented with vitamin A, group III were vaccinated only and group IV were supplemented with vitamin A only. There were significant increase (p<0.05) in immune response in vaccinated chickens supplemented with vitamin A supplement compared to chickens in other three groups. Therefore, this study suggests that vitamin A should be supplemented to scavenging local chickens during vaccination programme to increase immunization efficiency in the local chickens.

Key words: Newcastle virus disease, I-2 vaccine, scavenging local chickens,