Survival ability and mortality profile of Indonesian local chicken embryos subjected to the short period of incubation during egg storage Muhammad Rachman Hakim (a,b*), Wihandoyo (c), Diah Tri Widayati (d), Heru Sasongko (c), and Hasbi (b)
a) Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Animal Science, Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar, 90245
b) Graduate Study of Animal Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta 55281
*muhammad.rachman0781[at]mail.ugm.ac.id
c) Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Animal Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281
d) Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Animal Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of egg storage duration and short incubation treatment during storage on the survival ability and mortality profile of the local chicken embryo. A total of 500 freshly laid eggs collected from a local breeder chicken flock were selected, and stored according to the storage groups as 0, 7, and 14 days, respectively, at 18C and 50 percent relative humidity before setting for incubation. An additional group of eggs was stored for 14 days and subjected to the four-hour incubation condition (37.8C) on the day seventh of the storage period. Therefore, there were four storage groups as treatments and four independent incubation periods as replication with uneven egg numbers based on the selection result during collection. Breakout analysis was conducted to evaluate the mortality profile of the clear eggs from candling activity on the 18th day of incubation and from unhatched eggs at the end of the incubation period. The study revealed that the true fertility from all groups was quite similar- however, prolonged stored of the eggs up to 14 days decreased the survival ability of the chicken embryos. The mortality rate in the first week of incubation was significantly higher for the longer storage period. On the other hand, the embryos from the group of eggs subjected to the short incubation period during storage were observed to have a number of embryos that survived until the hatching process as high as the embryos from the 0-day stored group. The study also showed that the effect of the prolonged storage period was characterized by the high number of embryos that died during the first 48 hours of incubation. It could be concluded that prolonged stored egg impaired the survival ability of the chicken embryos- however, this effect could be minimized by placed the egg for short period of incubation during storage.
Keywords: local chicken- egg storage- survival ability- mortality profile
