Physical characteristics of eggs from Mexican Creole, Hy-Line Brown and Rhode Island Red hens in intensive production

Resumen

Objective: To characterize the egg from three hen genotypes: Mexican Creole (MC), Hy-Line Brown (HLB) and Rhode Island Red (RIR).

Design/Methodology/Approach: Three groups of each genotype were formed using 75 hens (30 MC, 30 HLB and 15 RIR), 20 weeks old. Daily, for 84 days, two eggs were chosen randomly from each group to determine: weight (w, g), length (L, cm), width (Wth, cm), shape index (SI), volume (VOL, cm³), area (AR, cm²), shell color (SCo), yolk color (YCo), white weight (WW, g), yolk weight (YW, g), shell weight (SW, g), white proportion (WProp), yolk proportion (YProp), and shell proportion (SProp). The means were compared with Tukey’s test, P˂0.05, using the SAS software.

Results: The genotype HLB was superior (P<0.05) in W, Wth, SI, VOL, AR, SCo, WW, and WProp (61.220 g, 4.400 cm, 0.801, 55.890 cm³, 71.723 cm², 6.834, 38.030 g and 0.621, respectively). There were no differences between genotypes (P>0.05) in L (5.383 to 5.490 cm). The MC hens were superior (P<0.05) in YCo, YW and SProp (6.738, 15.923 g and 0.132, respectively). The SW differed (P<0.05) between genotypes: HLB (7.550 g), MC (6.661 g) and RIR (6.205 g). MC and RIR had higher (P<0.05) YProp (0.314 and 0.304, respectively) than HLB (0.250).

Study Limitation/Implications: The study contemplated only one part of the production period of the birds.

Findings/Conclusions: Each genotype produced egg with particular physical characteristics, with Creole hens standing out due to their high values of yolk color and proportions of yolk and shell.