Improving Methods of Fertility and Hatching Results in Naked Neck Chicken (Sharkasi) Eggs

Abstract

A total number of 5030 hatching eggs were produced from three genotypes namely; homozygous naked neck (Na/Na), heterozygous naked neck (Na/na) and normal feathering (na/na) genotypes to investigate the effect of some treatments to reduce egg weight loss during storage and incubation which may contribute to the improvement of hatching results of Sharkasi chickens. The results are summarized as follow: 1-Effect of packaging.-The Na/-birds exhibited higher egg weight loss during storage or incubation period as compared with na/na genotype. Packaging (versus non-packaged) of eggs reduced significantly (P<0.01) egg weight loss. -The differences due to genotype or packaging method on fertility was insignificant. -Packaging reduced significantly (P<0.01) the total embryonic mortality and improved hatchability by about 4%. The Na/-birds exhibited a remarkable reduction in hatchability and most of losses in embryos occurred mainly during the last stage before hatching. -A significant (P<0.05) interaction between packaging and genotype was found where packaging improved hatchability of the Na/-eggs by about 5.5% and 5.4% for the Na/Na and Na/na genotypes as compared with 0.9% for the na/na genotype. 2 -Effect of calcium level. -Differences due to genotype or dietary calcium level on fertility were insignificant. -High dietary calcium level (3.47%) reduced significantly (P<0.01) egg weight loss as compared with low dietary calcium (2.51%). Also, it reduced the total embryonic mortality by about 3.80%. -Although, dietary calcium level did not affect hatchability, the birds receiving high dietary calcium had higher hatchability (82.5%) than birds receiving low dietary calcium (79.7%). -The interaction between calcium level and genotype was significant (P<0.05) where the hatchability from birds receiving high dietary calcium was 77.7%, 85.4%, 84.4% for Na/Na, Na/na and na/na genotypes, respectively. The corresponding figures for birds receiving low dietary calcium level were 70.20%, 78% and 90.70%. It can be concluded that, packaging of eggs in polyethelene bags and feeding on high dietary calcium level (3.47%) are effective means for reducing egg weight loss and hence improving the hatching ability of the naked neck birds.