Effect of Heat Treatments During Hatching Eggs Storage on Hatchability Traits and Chick Quality

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of short periods of incubation during egg storage (SPIDES) on hatchability, embryonic mortality, incubation time and chick quality of broiler breeder hatching eggs stored for 15 days. A total of 15510 hatching eggs were collected from 49-wk-old Arbor Acres broiler breeders flock. Eggs were divided into four groups. First group was stored for 5 days without heat treatment (Fresh eggs). Second group was stored for 15 days and heated one time at the fifth day of storage (SPIDES1). Third group was stored for 15 days and heated two times, on fifth and tenth days of storage (SPIDES2). Forth group was stored for 15 days without heating, a negative control. Heat treatment was at 32 o C and 55-60% relative humidity for 6 hours. Results indicated that prolonged storage reduced hatchability, and visible fertility of untreated eggs. Heat treatments improved early embryonic mortality, hatchability and visible fertility. When eggs were exposed two times to heat treatment the hatchability was significantly improved as compared to those exposed one time only. Incubation time of the negative control was significantly increased as compared to the fresh eggs group or both heat treatment groups. No differences were observed between groups in live pipped or culled percentages. Relative yolk sac weight of newly hatched chicks increased significantly with the length of the pre-incubation storage period. However, both heat treatments restored this percentage to that of the fresh eggs. Chick quality traits (Tona score, chick weight, relative chick weight and chick length\weight) of the negative control group had lowest values as compared to other groups. However, SPIDES treatments slightly improved chick qualities. In conclusion, the present study revealed that SPIDES is an effective method to ameliorate the detrimental effects of long storage period on hatchability and chick quality.

The effect of storage periods and SPIDES on embryonic mortality, hatching characteristics, and quality of newly hatched chicks in broiler eggs

“…Furthermore, hatchability was enhanced with a heat treatment that included four 4-h pre-incubations spaced 4–5 days apart over a period of 3 weeks of storage at 16 °C mainly by reducing late embryo mortality rather than early death (Dymond et al, 2013 ). Numerous additional authors, on the other hand, have shown that warming therapy before incubation lowers early mortality (0–7 days) (Fasenko et al, 2001b ; Gucbilmez et al, 2013 ; Nicholson et al, 2013 ; Reijrink et al, 2010 , 2009 ) and late embryo mortality especially in comparison to unheated eggs (Abdel-Halim et al, 2015 ; Ebeid et al, 2017 ; Gharib, 2013 ).…”

“…When investigating the circumstances under which mass egg incubation is occurring in hatcheries, currently, it is obvious that getting the best hatching synchronization and shortening the gap between the first and last chicks to hatch outweighs the length of incubation period. Except for species-specific differences, it has been demonstrated that the mother’s age, the genetic makeup, and the weight of the eggs, as well as the amount of time and the environment in which they were kept before incubation, can all affect how long it takes to hatch an egg (Abdel-Halim et al, 2015 ; Fasenko, 2007 ; Ruiz and Lunam, 2002 ; Vieira et al, 2005 ). Now that each of these elements is considered in industrial hatcheries, with the intention of treating all eggs during storage similarly and hatching them at the same time using the same reproductive flocks (van de Ven, 2012 ), however, Tong et al ( 2013 ) detected that hatch window ranges from 24 to 48 h. Consequently, in contrast to precocial birds’ natural development, which takes 3 to 24 h and has at least 3rd eggs in its clutch (Eichholz and Towery, 2010 ), the reason for this discrepancy is that the insignificant small number of eggs in a normal clutch is in comparison with hundreds of thousands of eggs placed in a hatching device.…”

“…Longer egg holding duration was found in the research done by Dymond et al ( 2013 ) and Nasri et al ( 2017 ), and this may be the reason even in the “SPIDES” group, the scientists were able to extend the incubation period by a significant amount: 499–508 h. Also, after 21 days of cold storage, they were able to reduce the pre-incubation heating time to 6 or 12 h. Reijrink et al ( 2010 ) also found a decrease in incubation time utilizing 24 h (PI) throughout 14 days of cold storage. Abdel-Halim et al ( 2015 ) and Damaziak et al ( 2018 ) conceived that the study’s 8 h (PI) in 12-day storage duration was too brief to have a major effect on incubation time reduction and hatching synchronization. Results in this study may be attributed to the temperature of 100 °F that was used for 3.5 hours in the SPIDES treatment, which had a significant effect on reducing incubation time and coordinating hatching.…”