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, r2