Evaluation of Nest Box Management on Hatching Egg Hygiene and Chick Quality

Abstract

Introduction The success of a breeder flock depends on producing good quality hatching eggs with high hatchability and delivering first quality chicks. Hatching egg hygiene is influenced by nest material, nest box management, health status, environmental temperature and the bird’s feed or nutrient intake. Under natural conditions, avian eggs are equipped with a diverse microflora of commensal strains but still contamination of hatching eggs with more pathogenic bacteria species may cause poor hatchability and decreased chick performance in industrial broiler production (Baxter-Jones, 1991; Wang et al., 2011). Most eggshell contamination occurs immediately after eggs are laid and the main source of contamination of hatching eggs is contact of shells with dirty surfaces (Dolman and Board, 1992). Therefore, the location and sanitation of the place of oviposition is critical in relation to obtaining hatching eggs with minimum contamination of the eggshells (Sparks and Board, 1985). However, in large International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 10 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com The study was carried out to investigate the effect of hatching egg fumigation and nest box management on egg hygiene and chick quality. Eggs collected from two randomly selected farms were fumigated in the farm itself. Egg shell impression was made on selective agar plates before and after fumigation to study the shell microbial load from nest box. After that the eggs were hatched following standard incubation protocol and chick quality was evaluated based on chick length, body weight, vent temperature, chick yield, yolk free body mass and chick grading. The results showed that proper nest box management resulted in reduced microbial load on the egg shell and improved chick quality. K e y w o r d s Egg Fumigation, Nest box management, Chick quality Accepted: 15 September 2020 Available Online: 10 October 2020 Article Info Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2020) 9(10): 1659-1662 1660 scale production, the presence of some dirty eggs is almost inevitable, and particular attention to sufficient disinfection must be given to visibly dirty eggs, otherwise they may carry a high load of bacteria into the hatcher which may result in low hatchability and high mortality of the chicks (Buhr et al., 2015). Materials and Methods Bacterial sampling of surface of eggshells Eggshell samples were obtained at two different time points for 3 consecutive days (Table 1). 50 eggs per day from two farms chosen and sampled before and after fumigation at the laying farm and then stored in egg cold room at 17-19 ̊C. Fumigation was done using a mixture of 50 ml perox and 2450 ml of water. The temperature and the relative humidity in the fumigation chamber were kept between 24 to 38°C and 60 to 80%, respectively. With a gloved hand, the broad end of the egg surface only stamped (Egg impression method) on the Tryptic Soy Agar (TSA) plates. For a single plate four eggs surface samples were taken. Immediately after taking sample, plates are sent to the laboratory for incubation. Chick quality measurements Chick length, Body weight, Vent temperature, Chick yield, Yolk free body mass, Chick grading were determined.