Assessment of egg quality over time of hens ranked as high or low feed efficiency

The present study was conducted to investigate the associations between feed conversion ratio (FCR) and the quality characteristics of stored eggs. From an initial screening phase using 140 Isa Brown layers (28 week old), 10 most efficient (FCR 2.51) hens were identified and designated as high feed efficiency (HFE) and low feed efficiency (LFE) groups respectively. For quality assessment, eggs (n = 10 per group) were stored in a cool room at 10 ͦC for 0, 14 and 28 d. Eggs were collected on 3 consecutive days for each time point from each group of hens. At 0, 14 & 28 d, the albumen weight, albumen height, Haugh unit and albumen: yolk ratio of eggs from the HFE group were significantly higher than those of the LFE group, whereas eggs from the LFE group of eggs had heavier yolk than the HFE group. After 28 d storage, the yolk colour score of the LFE group was lower than that of the HFE group. No significant changes were found in external egg and shell quality measurements as well as in albumen width and albumen pH, yolk height and yolk pH of freshly laid and stored eggs. The findings of this study indicate that HFE birds have greater egg quality parameters related to albumen both at lay and after storage. Furthermore, the yolk colour score of HFE became lower at a slower rate during storage