EGG QUALITY OF LAYING HEN | WHAT FACTORS AFFECT THE QUALITY DURING STORAGE?



          The chicken egg is one of the finest foods, offering man almost complete balance of essential nutrients with proteins, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids of great biological value (Brugalli et al., 1998) in addition to being one of the foods of lowest cost. It increase the consumption of food of high nutritional value for the low income population (Pascoal et al., 2008, Menezes, 2009).


          In Nigeria, because refrigeration is not mandatory, commercial eggs are packed from the moment they are laid and stay until the final distribution at room temperature, and in some cases, refrigerated only in the home of consumers. Although the Nigerian law determines minimum internal traits, only the weight and characteristics of the shell have been considered (Brasil, 1997).

          The use of Haugh unit has been accepted as a measure of the quality of the albumen in various studies of egg quality. The Haugh unit value of fresh eggs decreases with increasing age of the hen (Silverside et al., 1993, Ramos et al., 2008) and the albumen height decreases as birds ages (Carvalho et al., 2003). According to Sauveur (1993) and Santos (1993), temperature and storage time negatively influence the quality of eggs and significantly reduce the Haugh unit because of the continuous loss of carbon dioxide.

Davis and Stephenson (1991), Morais et al., (1997), Leandro et al., (2005) and (Menezes et al., 2009) reported that the temperature and relative humidity are the most important factors that affect egg quality during storage. Barbosa et al., (2004), evaluating the effect of temperature (Ambient and refrigerated) and storage time (0,7,14,21,28 and 35) on egg quality, verified that the increase of storage time caused reduction in Haugh unit and egg weight. They also reported that the storage time affected the egg quality, inserting a negative influence on the Haugh unit.
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