Egg weight affected some egg quality traits of chicken eggs

Author: S. R. Shi ¹, K. H. Wang ^1*, T. C. Dou ¹ and H. M. Yang ²

Received 16 January 2009, accepted 14 April 2009.

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of egg weight on egg quality traits. One hundred and fifty eggs of three grade sizes (small 48.937 g, medium 54.885 g and large 60.385 g) with 50 eggs for each size group were collected from the brown-egg layer strain of Nike and used to determine the egg quality traits. Egg weight (EW) significantly affected the shape index, shell thickness, yolk weight percentage, albumen weight percentage, albumen height and Haugh unit (P < 0.05). Shape index, shell thickness and albumen weight percentage increased with EW increasing, while yolk weight percentage decreased with egg weight increasing. Albumen height changed from low to high in the order of medium, small and large eggs, respectively, while Haugh unit was highest in small, intermediate in large and lowest in medium size eggs. There were no significant correlations between EW and other egg quality traits in small, medium and large eggs (P > 0.05). In overall, although there were significant positive correlations between EW and shape index, EW and shell thickness and EW and albumen weight percentage, there were significant negative correlations between EW and shell weight percentage and EW and yolk weight percentage. It was concluded that it was feasible to assess some egg quality traits through the egg weight.

Key words: Egg weight, egg quality traits, correlation between quality traits.