COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF EGG QUALITY TRAITS FROM CHICKENS AND GUINEA FOWLS

Abstract

The study was carried out to determine the magnitude of the differences in egg quality traits from chickens and guinea fowls. For this purpose, a total of twenty egg laying birds, consisting of ten Guinea fowls and Rhode Island Red were used at the poultry section of the Teaching and Research farm of the Animal Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano. Formulated layers diets were fed to the birds for six weeks and egg samples were collected weekly to study the internal and external egg quality traits. The external quality traits were egg weight, shape index, egg circumference, egg diameter, egg length and shell surface area while the internal quality traits were the albumen weight, yolk weight, shell weight and shell thickness. Results showed that there was no significant difference (P>0.05) in shape index of the two bird species. On the contrary, there were highly significant difference (P<0.01) in egg weight, egg circumference, egg diameter, egg length, shell surface area, shell thickness, yolk weight, albumen eight and shell weight. Relationships between measured traits had positive and negative distribution within traits for both bird species. Hopefully, the result obtained from this study would serve as baseline information for more studies, most especially in Guinea fowl, for selection procedures and genetic improvement.