ISSN 1023-6104
© Rajshahi University Zoological Society
Univ. j. zool. Rajshahi Univ. Vol. 31, 2012 pp. 85-87
http://journals.sfu.ca/bd/index.php/UJZRU
Scientific Note
Egg morphometric analyses in chickens and some selected birds
Md. Ashraful Kabir1, M. Saiful Islam* and Ripon Kumar Dutta
Department of Zoology, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi 6205, Bangladesh; 1Present address: Department of
Biology, Holy Land College, Dinajpur 5200, Bangladesh; *Corresponding author (email: saifulzoo@yahoo.co.uk).
Morphometrics in general refers to measurements
of the body parts. The knowledge and information
on morphometric parameters is therefore essential
for understanding an animal and its reproductive
biology in particular (Danilov, 2000). Egg
morphometric parameters such as egg weight,
egg width, albumen and yolk weights are very
important in poultry because these factors
influence egg quality and grading (Farooq et al.,
2001), reproductive fitness of the chickens and
embryonic development (Onagbesan et al., 2007).
Effects of feed (Shapira, 2010) and housing
system (Wang et al., 2009) on egg composition
and its quality have been reported. Internal egg
quality parameters such as albumen weight and
yolk weight are very important from nutritional and
cholesterol content for human consumption
(Sparks, 2006). Egg characteristics of Fayoumi
(Islam, 2005), broiler chickens (Mamun, 2005) and
indigenous fowl (Sarker, 2006) have previously
been reported. In recent years egg quality traits of
various chicken breeds (Islam & Dutta, 2010;
Jones et al., 2010; Momoh et al., 2010) revealed
results that are important to poultry breeders. Here
we report a detailed account of egg
morphometrics from six available chicken breeds
and five other bird species.
Experimental: Eggs from breeder hens of an
indigenous (non-descriptive, Deshi), five purebred
exotics viz., Cobb-500, RIR, ISA Brown, ISA White
and Fayoumi, and a crossbred called Sonali
(derived from RIR♂ × Fayoumi♀) were collected
for this study. Moreover, eggs from five selected
pet birds namely goose, duck, pigeon, dove and
quail were also collected. A total of 120 fresh eggs
(12 birds × 10 replicates each) were collected for
estimating egg quality traits viz. egg length (EL in
cm), egg width (EW in cm), egg volume (EV in
cm3), gross egg weight (GW in g) and shell weight
(SW in g). In addition, four internal egg quality
traits viz. shell index (SI=EW÷EL×100), shell ratio
(SR=SW÷EW×100), yolk weight (YW in g) and
albumin weight (AW in g) were taken into account.
The eggs were numbered first and then weighed
on an electronic balance to determine their
weights. Subsequently, EV was determined using
the formula, EV= π × EL × EW2/6 (cm3). Each egg
was broken on a table and its contents poured into
a plate or small pot. Then the yolk was separated
from the albumen with the help of a spoon and
weighed. Moreover, the phenotypic associations
between the relevant external and internal egg
quality traits were determined by Karl Pearson’s
product moment co-efficient of correlation (r).
Mean, standard deviation (SD), analysis of
variance (ANOVA), least significant differences
(LSD) and r values were computed using the
SPSS (version 11.0 for Windows). Data on various
egg morphometrics and external and internal egg
quality traits were subject to these statistical
procedures to detect the significant differences
between the genetic groups of chicken under
study.
Egg morphometric parameters in chickens: It is
apparent from the results presented in Table 1 that
the parameters like EL, EW, EV, GW, SW and AW
were found to be the highest in ISA Brown and the
lowest in the indigenous chickens. This trend was
altered for YW, SI and SR traits where the highest
values were recorded respectively in Cobb 500,
Cobb 500 and RIR, whereas the indigenous, ISA
White and ISA White showed the lowest values. A
descending order of ISA Brown > ISA White >
Cobb 500 > Fayoumi >RIR > Sonali > indigenous
was obvious for EV. Depending on GW, the
chicken breeds could be arranged in a descending
order of ISA Brown > Cobb 500 > ISA White >
Fayoumi >RIR > Sonali > indigenous. The AY of
the chickens was recorded as follows: ISA Brown
> Cobb 500 > ISA White> Fayoumi > RIR > Sonali
> indigenous while the YW was recorded as Cobb
500 > ISA White> ISA Brown > Fayoumi > Sonali
> RIR > indigenous. One-way ANOVA
demonstrated that all the egg morphometric
parameters varied significantly among the chicken
breeds (P<0.001) except for EL (F6, 63= 1.24;
P>0.05).
Egg morphometric parameters in other birds: In
birds other than chickens, goose had the highest
values for EL, EW, EV, GW, SW, AW and YW,
whereas quail and pigeon attained the highest
values for SI and SR, respectively. On the other
hand, quail (EL and AW), dove (EW, EV, GW and
SW), pigeon (YW) and goose (SI and SR) showed
the lowest values for the parameters in
parentheses (Table 1). On the basis of EV and
GW, a descending order of goose > duck > pigeon
Kabir et al.
86
> quail > dove was recorded for each parameter.
On the other hand, the sequences of AW and YW
were goose > duck > pigeon > dove > quail, and
goose > duck > quail > dove > pigeon,
respectively. Unlike chicken breeds, one-way
ANOVA revealed highly significant variations
among the five bird species under study
(P<0.001).
Table 1. Egg morphometric parameters in chickens and some other birds
Breeds
Indigenou
s
Cobb 500
ISA Brown
ISA White
RIR
Fayoumi
Sonali
Goose
Duck
Pigeon
Dove
Quail
EL
EW
EV
GW
SW
AW
YW
SI
SR
4.59
a
±0.47
5.86
±0.15a
5.93
±0.54a
5.90
a
±0.14
5.11
±0.15a
5.06
±0.23a
4.96
±0.14a
8.80
±0.19a
5.87
±0.17b
3.82
±0.19c
3.26
±0.08d
3.15
±0.09de
3.56
±0.19a
4.09
±0.17bh
4.56
±0.14c
4.25
bd
±0.10
3.83
±0.07ef
3.92
±0.13fgh
3.77
±0.09fg
5.96
±0.19a
4.07
±0.09b
2.73
±0.12c
2.30
±0.08d
2.41
±0.09de
30.72
±5.81a
51.45
±5.18b
62.01
±4.80c
55.78
bdh
±2.58
39.26
±2.20ef
40.73
±3.31f
36.94
±2.55efg
63.91
±3.57a
51.42
±2.85b
14.97
±1.97c
9.05
±0.84cd
9.59
±0.81ce
20.20
±4.76a
56.20
±1.62b
57.50
±2.72bc
53.90
bd
±2.64
28.80
±0.80e
38.00
±3.30f
26.60
±4.81eg
66.30
±3.34a
53.50
±5.76b
11.70
±0.82c
9.40
±0.52cd
10.90
±1.73ce
4.20
±1.69a
9.20
±0.92b
10.20
±1.14bc
8.50
bd
±1.51
6.70
±0.68e
8.60
±0.84bf
5.10
±2.18ae
20.00
±1.25a
9.00
±2.16b
2.40
±0.52c
1.60
±0.52cd
2.20
±0.63ce
8.10
±2.08a
32.00
±2.40b
35.50
±2.17c
31.70
bd
±1.4
13.30
±1.25e
19.40
±2.01f
12.50
±3.21eg
81.60
±1.35a
28.70
±3.02b
6.30
±0.68c
4.30
±0.48cd
3.70
±0.68def
7.90
±2.03a
15.00
±2.87b
11.90
±1.10ce
13.70
bde
±2.67
8.80
±1.40a
10.00
±1.63ac
9.00
±1.33a
64.70
±1.83a
15.80
±2.53b
3.00
±0.82c
3.30
±0.48cd
5.00
±1.56ce
78.10
±7.11a
69.79
±1.95c
79.90
±2.83a
72.08
c
±2.70
74.99
±1.93b
77.64
±4.80a
76.04
±2.15b
67.57
±1.16c
69.36
±1.51c
71.50
±1.64b
70.55
±1.49b
76.54
±3.04a
20.17
±4.65b
16.35
±1.35c
17.78
±1.53c
15.75
c
±2.59
23.25
±2.09a
22.71
±2.24a
18.94
±6.00b
12.02
±0.62c
16.74
±3.34b
20.69
±5.18a
15.78
±4.96b
19.11
±6.14a
EL= egg length; EW= egg width; EV= egg volume; GW= gross egg weight; SW= shell weight; AW= albumen weight; YW= yolk
weight; SI= shell index; SR= shell ratio. Figures (mean ± SD values) followed by different superscripts for each parameter in the
same column (chickens and other birds considered separately) differ significantly by LSD (P<0.05).
Associations
between
egg
morphometric
parameters: The GW was significantly correlated
with EV in indigenous (r= 0.88; P<0.001) and ISA
Brown (r= 0.72; P<0.001), with SW in indigenous
(r= 0.88; P<0.001) and Cobb 500 (r= 0.72;
P<0.05), with AW in indigenous (r= 0.84; P<0.01),
ISA Brown (r= 0.77; P<0.01), Fayoumi (r= 0.90;
P<0.001)and Sonali (r= 0.81; P<0.01), with YW in
indigenous (r= 0.75; P<0.05), Cobb 500 (r= 0.69;
P<0.05), ISA White (r= 0.74; P<0.05), Fayoumi (r=
0.64; P<0.05) and Sonali (r= 0.71; P<0.05), with SI
in ISA White (r= -0.78; P<0.01) and Fayoumi (r= 0.65; P<0.05); and with SR in indigenous chickens
(r= 0.63; P<0.05) only. In birds other than
chickens, significant correlations were found to
exist between GW and EV for goose (r= 0.91;
P<0.001), duck (r= 0.83; P<0.01) and pigeon (r=
0.66; P<0.05); between GW and SW and GW and
AW for goose (r= 0.64, 0.67 and 0.89,
respectively), duck (r= 0.66, 0.69 and 0.89,
respectively) and dove (r= 0.67, and 0.80,
respectively); between GW and YW for goose (r=
0.89; P<0.001), duck (r= 0.89; P<0.001), pigeon
(r= 0.66; P<0.05) and quail (r= 0.82; P<0.01); and
between GW and SR for dove only (r= 0.73;
P<0.05). All other correlations between the egg
parameters in chickens and other bird species
were statistically insignificants.
Economically
important
egg
morphometric
parameters such as weight, size, albumen and
yolk contents are quantitative traits that show
continuous variability (Chatterjee et al., 2007;
Islam & Dutta, 2010). It is also an established fact
that the weight of an egg is a direct proportion of
shell, albumen and yolk that it contains and this
varies significantly between breeds or strains of
the bird species (Jones et al., 2010; Momoh et al.,
2010). The present results lend support to the
findings of Yeasmin & Howlider (1998) and Islam
Egg morphometric analyses in chickens and some selected birds
(2006) for indigenous, Nahar et al. (2007) for
broiler, Islam & Nahar (2008) for White Leghorn,
RIR and indigenous, and Miazi (2008) for Fayoumi
and Sonali chickens. Internal egg parameters such
as AW and YW are very important from nutritional
and health viewpoints (Sparks, 2006). In this
regard, ISA Brown eggs showing the highest
albumen contents (35.50±2.17g) and indigenous
eggs showing the lowest yolk content (7.96±2.03g)
could be considered preferable. Significant
correlations between GW and various external and
internal egg parameters of the present study agree
with Pohle & Cheng (2009) and Momoh et al.
(2010). But unfortunately, owing to scarcity of
experimental data on egg morphometrics of such
birds as goose, duck, dove, pigeon and quail, the
present results could not be compared.
Conclusions: Chicken eggs contribute substantially
to the human nutrition and so their dietary profile
including lipid, cholesterol and antioxidant contents
are particularly important. In addition, because yolk
weight is related to the amount of cholesterol,
choice for the nutritionally potential and healthier
eggs is a matter of considerable concern, especially
to patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases,
oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction and
inflammatory syndromes. Apart from these,
information on the egg morphometric parameters is
also vital for an understanding of fertility,
development of embryo, egg quality and disease of
the poultry and other pet birds.
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Manuscript received on 10.11.2012, accepted on 07.12.2012
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