Effect of Egg Weight on Hatchability and Subsequent Performance of Potchefstroom koekoek Chicks. Asian Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 7(8): 718-725.

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the effect of Potchefstroom Koekoek chicken egg weight on hatchability and subsequent chick performance. In the first part of the study, a total of 450 Potchefstroom Koekoek eggs were used in a complete randomized design to determine the effect of egg weight on hatchability, embryonic deaths, egg weight loss and hatch weight. The eggs were allocated into three weight-treatments: large (>55 g, A), medium (45-55 g, B) and small (<45 g, C). Hatching yield, hatchability, embryonic deaths, egg weight loss and hatch weight were significantly (p<0.05) affected by the weight of the eggs. The large and medium-sized eggs had higher hatching yield (60 and 70%, respectively). The medium-sized eggs had higher (p<0.05) hatchability values than both small and large-sized eggs. Medium-sized eggs had lower (p<0.05) embryonic deaths (31%) than small (45%) and large (36%) egg sizes. The large-sized eggs had higher hatch-weights than small and medium-sized eggs. The total embryonic deaths, hatching yield and hatchability percentages were optimized within the medium-sized eggs (51 g, r2100). The second part of the study was aimed at determining the effect of Potchefstroom Koekoek egg weights on subsequent chick performance and carcass characteristics. The chicks were fed a growers diet containing 11.97 ME MJ kg-1 DM feed of energy and 161 g kg-1 CP. Feed and water were given ad libitum. All the performance parameters were significantly (p>0.05) influenced by egg weight except mortality of the chicks at both starter and finisher phases. The large-sized egg had high (p<0.05) weight gain, better (p<0.05) daily feed intake (36 and 94 g) and feed conversion ratio (3.0 and 5.1) for both starter and finisher phases, respectively. It can be concluded that for better hatchability medium-sized eggs can be considered. However, if growth performance is of primary importance large-sized eggs can be used.