2003b. Accelerating embryonic growth during incubation following prolonged egg storage. 2. Embryonic growth and metabolism

ABSTRACT The hypothesis was proposed that the im-proved embryonic livability observed when higher incu-bation temperatures were imposed on eggs stored for 15 d prior to setting might have basis in energy metabolism. To test the hypothesis, fertilized turkey eggs were incu-bated either for the first 2 wk of development (experiment 1) or only the first week of development (experiment 2) at 37.8°C compared with controls incubated at 37.5°C. In both experiments, eggs were stored for either 15 or 3 d prior to setting. Viable embryos were selected randomly from each storage-by-incubation period treatment combi-nation at 25 to 28 d of incubation and were sampled for blood, heart, and skeletal muscle tissues. Tissues were weighed and assayed subsequently for glucose or glyco-gen content. In experiment 2, the randomly selected em-(Key words: egg storage, embryo survival, turkey embryo