Culture of Chicken Embryos in Surrogate Eggshells

ABSTRACT The chick embryo is a classical model to study embryonic development. However, most research-ers have not studied the effect of embryonic manipulation on chick hatchability. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of egg orientation and type of sealing film on the hatchability of cultured embryos. Windows were made in the small end of recipient surrogate chicken eggshells, and donor embryos were placed into the recipi-ent eggshell for the first 3 d of incubation. Survival over the first 3 d was maximized (P < 0.05) when windowed eggs sealed with Saran Wrap were positioned with the window-end down compared with window-end up. (Key words: surrogate eggshell, avian embryo culture, transgenic bird, hatchability