Current egg washing practices use wash water temperatures averaging 49 degrees C and have been found to increase internal egg temperature by 6.7 to 7.8 degrees C. These high temperatures create a more optimal environment for bacterial growth, including Salmonella Enteritidis if it is present. Salmonella Enteritidis is the most common human pathogen associated with shell eggs and egg products. I...

The US egg industry is exploring alternative housing systems for laying hens. However, limited published research related to cage-free aviary systems and enriched colony cages exists related to production, egg quality, and hen nutrition. The laying hen's nutritional requirements and resulting productivity are well established with the conventional cage system, but diminutive research is availab...

Variations in egg size and composition can have important consequences for the quality of offspring. We investigated the effect of temperature, in the 5 days preceding laying, on yolk, albumen, shell and total egg mass. Moreover, we examined the influence of temperature on three important egg components, i.e. the yolk carotenoids and the albumen lysozyme and avidin. In our experimental conditio...

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of bacteriophage supplementation on egg performance, egg quality, excreta microflora, and moisture content in laying hens. A total of 288 Hy-line brown commercial laying hens (36-wk-old) were randomly allotted to 4 treatments in this 6-wk trial and dietary treatments included: i) CON, basal diet; ii) T1, CON+0.020% bacteriophage; iii) T2, CON+...

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary corticosterone on egg quality. For 2 weeks hens received either control or experimental diet containing corticosterone at 30 mg/kg diet. Feed intake and egg production were monitored daily, and body weight measured weekly. Egg weights and egg quality were measured daily. Corticosterone treatment resulted in a remarkable incre...

the experiment was designed to study the changes in production performance and egg quality of old laying hens after injection of different doses of growth hormone (gh) and testosterone (ts). a total of 160 old laying hens (hyline w-36) at 73 wks of age were randomly assigned to four treatments with four replicates and 10 birds in each replicate in a completely randomized design. treatment group...

this trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of different dietary factors that affect egg cholesterol concentration in laying hens of 56 to 70 weeks of age. three hundred and ninety six hy-line w36 laying hens were subjected to 11 experimental treatments, each treatment consisting of 4 replicates, each replicate of 9 hens. dietary treatments included the control, made up of corn plus soy me...

Possibilities of predicting eggshell ultrastructure from direct non-destructive and destructive measurements were examined using 120 Fayoumi eggs collected from the flock at 45 weeks of age. The non-destructive measurements included weight, length and width of the egg. The destructive measurements were breaking strength and shell thickness. The eggshell ultrastructure traits involved the total ...