The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of vitamin A on the performance, vitamin A content in serum and intestinal development of Beijing ducks from 0 to 3 weeks of age. A total of 360 one-day-old Beijing ducklings were randomly allocated to 5 groups with 6 replicates each and 12 birds in each replicate. The birds were fed corn-corn starch-soybean basal diet supplemented with 0, 2 500, 5 000, 10 000 and 15 000 IU/kg vitamin A, respectively from the age of 1 to 21 days. The results showed as follows: the addition of 2 500 IU/kg vitamin A could meet the needs of Beijing ducks; for the diet with 0～10 000 IU/kg vitamin A, the levels of vitamin A content in serum were significantly increased while the addition level of vitamin A in the basal diet increased (P<0.01), and no significant difference was observed between the 10 000 and 15 000 IU/kg groups; compared with the 2 500 IU/kg group, the intestinal villus length, crypt depth and intestinal wall thickness in the 0 IU/kg group were significantly decreased (P<0.05 or P<0.01), but there was no significant difference between the 2 500 IU/kg and other groups. It was concluded that the addition of vitamin A into the diet could improve the growth performance and intestinal villus length of Beijing ducks, and the situation of intestinal villus and the serum vitamin A could be used as indicator for evaluating the vitamin A nutrition status of Beijing ducks.