Effect of Housing System on Egg Quality in Laying Hens

Abstract

the aim of the study was to evaluate the quality of eggs from hybrids of laying hens of selected Polish breeding strains depending on their housing system. analysis was made of eggs from Ka-62, Ka-42, Ka-68 and Ka-48 hybrids housed in three systems: cage, litter and free range. one hundred eggs, randomly chosen from each experimental group between 34 and 36 weeks of age, were evaluated for a set of physical characteristics such as weight of egg and egg fraction, percentage of main egg fractions, egg shape index, air cell height, albumen height and ph, haugh units, yolk colour and ph, as well as shell colour, thickness, density and deformation. caged birds produced the heaviest eggs (61.06 g) with the lowest shape index (77.86%), lightest shell (39.86) and highest percentage of albumen (57.04%) and yolk (29.89%) in the egg. the most favourable quality traits of albumen from the analysed eggs, i.e. greatest height (5.00 mm) and haugh units (69.70) were characteristic of egg albumen from hens raised on litter. shell quality analysis showed that the eggs of free-range birds were characterized by the highest weight of shell (5.76 g), which had the greatest thickness (360.14 µm) and density (81.01 mg/cm 2 ). Detailed analysis of the physical characteristics of eggs from the hybrids of laying hens revealed significant (P≤0.05) differences depending on the housing system. the eggs of caged layers showed many characteristics desired by processors. meanwhile, the eggs of hens kept on litter were characterized by dietetic properties that could meet specific needs of the consumers.

Effect of housing system and age of laying hens on eggshell quality, microbial contamination, and penetration of microorganisms into eggs

“…In cages, the egg weight was increased with age within 1 g, whereas in free range, the weight increased to almost 9 g. These results are in correspondence with Van Den Brand et al (2004), who also detected an interaction of age and the housing system, and the free range layers had eggs with lower weight than the cage layers at the beginning of the experiment; however, the egg weight in eggs from free range increased faster after 59 weeks and was greater than the egg weight Lewko and Gornowicz (2011), who also found heavier eggs in cages in comparison with free range. However, Hidalgo et al (2008) reported that free range layers produced heavier eggs compared to other systems.…”

Effect of Housing Systems - Barn vs Cage on the First Phase Egg Production and Egg Quality Traits of Laying Pullet

“…Only shell thickness and dirty egg differed significantly (P<0.01) between two housing systems, but other quality parameters were similar between two housing systems (Table 3). Present study and some other observations (Lewko and Gornowicz, 2011;Dukic-Stojcic et al, 2009) found no significant difference on shape index between barn and cage eggs. However, Mohan et al (1991) found significantly higher shape index in barn than in cage.…”

“…However, there were also other (Singh et al, 2009;Lewko and Gornowicz, 2011) reports that more yellowish yolk color in eggs from barn. In addition, housing system did not affect any significant difference on yolk index (Table 4) Where, higher score represents more yellowish yolk ( 접수: 2013.…”

Effects of cage and barn rearing system on early laying performance of pullet

“…Some other recent studies (Lewko andGornowicz, 2011 andOhh, 2013) reported that soiled egg was higher on barn than in cages. The result is also partially supported by Belyavin (1988), who reported that the incidence of dirty and soiled eggs were higher on floor than in cages.…”