Effects of preincubation heating of broiler hatching eggs during storage, flock age, and length of storage period on hatchability

Abstract

The effects of heating of eggs during storage, broiler breeder age, and length of egg storage on hatchability of fertile eggs were examined in this study. Eggs were collected from Ross 344 male × Ross 308 broiler breeders on paper flats, held overnight (1 d) at 18°C and 75% RH, and then transferred to plastic trays. In experiment 1, eggs were obtained at 28, 38, and 53 wk of flock age. During a further 10 d of storage, eggs either remained in the storage room (control) or were subjected to a heat treatment regimen of 26°C for 2 h, 37.8°C for 3 h, and 26°C for 2 h in a setter at d 5 of storage. In experiment 2, eggs from a flock at 28 wk of age were heated for 1 d of a 6-d storage period. Eggs from a 29-wk-old flock were either heated at d 1 or 5 of an 11-d storage period in experiment 3. In experiment 4, 27-wk-old flock eggs were heated twice at d 1 and 5 of an 11-d storage period. Control eggs stored for 6 or 11 d were coincubated as appropriate in each experiment. Heating eggs at d 5 of an 11-d storage period increased hatchability in experiment 1. Although no benefit of heating 28-wk-old flock eggs during 6 d of storage in experiment 2 was observed, heating eggs from a 29-wk-old flock at d 1 or 5 of an 11-d storage period increased hatchability in experiment 3. Further, heating eggs from a 27-wk-old flock twice during 11 d of storage increased hatchability in experiment 4. These effects were probably due to the fact that eggs from younger flocks had been reported to have many embryos at a stage of development where the hypoblast had not yet fully developed (less than EG-K12 to EG-K13), such that heating during extended storage advanced these embryos to a more resistant stage.

Influence of pre-storage incubation on hatchability traits, thyroid hormones, antioxidative status and immunity of newly hatched chicks at two chicken breeder flock ages

“…These results are in correspondence with Petek and Dikmen (2006) who elucidated that there were significant pre-storage incubation × egg storage interactions (P < 0.001) for the apparent fertility, hatchability of total and fertile eggs. Also, results of the present study revealed that pre-storage incubation for 6 or 8 h had a positive effect on hatchability of set eggs and hatchability of fertile eggs and these results are in agreement with several previous studies (Petek and Dikmen, 2004;Silva et al, 2008;Gucbilmez et al, 2013). Fasenko et al (2001b) showed that the pre-storage incubation treatment of 6 h improved hatchability (81.9%) in comparison with the control treatment (72.2%) when eggs were stored for 14 days.…”

“…Similarly, Reijrink et al (2010b) showed that pre-storage incubation decreased embryonic mortality during the first 2 days of incubation by 0.8% (P = 0.01) and decreased embryonic mortality on day 20 of incubation by 0.3% (P = 0.05). These results are consistent with the findings of Fasenko et al (2001a and2001b), Reijrink et al (2009) and Gucbilmez et al (2013) who explained that pre-storage incubation enhanced the embryo viability, decreased the embryonic mortality and increased the hatchability. Gucbilmez et al (2013) reported that hatchability of fertile eggs obtained from a 29-week-old flock stored for 11 days was increased by heating at either 1 or 5 days of storage, with an accompanying significant decrease in early dead and numerical decrease in late dead as compared with the control.…”

“…Warming of hatching eggs before storage (pre-storage incubation) has been a suggested method to reduce the negative effects of long-term storage times by enhancing the developmental stage of the embryo. Some previously published studies indicated that pre-storage incubation was associated with improvements in hatchability of chickens (Fasenko et al, 2001b;Silva et al, 2008;Gucbilmez et al, 2013), turkeys (Fasenko et al, 2001a) and quails (Petek and Dikmen, 2004) and these improvements were connected with the stage of embryonic development in the egg at the time the egg is stored. Fasenko et al (2001a and2001b) and Reijrink et al (2009) confirmed that embryos that have completed hypoblast formation have a survival advantage over embryos that are undergoing, or have just completed, the area pellucida formation which finally translated into higher hatchability rates.…”

Effect of Short Period Incubation During Egg Storage on Hatchability, Embryonic Mortality and Chick Quality

“…Moreover, Marandure et al (2012) exposed broiler breeder eggs to 4 , 8 , 12 h warming , they found that hatchability decreased with time . This was not observed by Gucbilmez et al (2013) who reported no benefit effect of heating broiler breeder's eggs for 1 d of a 6-d storage period on hatchability percentage, although the storage periods by pre-heating interaction effect was significant on both hatchability and chick weight at hatch. Effect of short period incubation fourth time (2.5 and 5 h) and prolonged egg storage (21 days) on hatchability characteristics, embryonic mortality, pips and abnormal chicks:…”

Bioenvironmental Zonal Controlling of Incubated Avian Embryo Using Localised Infrared Heating

“…Therefore, it regularly happens that eggs from two or three different flocks are combined in one machine, which can lead to sub-optimal results. For instance, putting eggs from a flock with an age of 30 weeks with those from another flock of 60 weeks of age in the same incubator will certainly lead to a decrease in the number of hatched chicks, poorer chick quality, higher post-hatch mortality, etc., under present conditions where all eggs in the machine are treated equally [8][9][10].…”