Effects of Egg's Weight on Egg Quality Traits of the Potchefstroom Koekoek Chicken Genotype

Abstract

Egg is a reproduction tool for chickens and valuable food source for humans. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of egg weight (EW) on egg quality traits such as egg length (EL), egg diameter (ED), yolk weight (YW), albumen weight (AW), shell weight (SW), shell index (SI), yolk ratio (YR), albumen ratio (AR) and shell ratio (SR). Potchefstroom Koekoek layer genotype eggs (n = 200) were used. Pearson correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for analysis. Correlation results indicated that egg weight had a statistical significant correlation (P < 0.05) with egg quality traits. Egg weight displayed a positive significant correlation with EL (0.82), AW (0.67) and SW (0.62), respectively. The findings suggest that EL, AW and SW might be used to improve EW of Potchefstroom Koekoek chicken genotype. ANOVA results showed that egg weight had a statistical significant difference (P < 0.05) with egg quality traits except albumen ratio and yolk ratio (P > 0.05). Moreover, the findings revealed that small eggs weight had a longer egg length, yolk weight, shell weight, shell ratio and albumen weight than medium and large eggs. Large eggs had a higher egg diameter and shell index.


Keywords: Albumen weight, egg length, large egg, medium egg, small egg, shell weight

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