Some internal and external egg quality characteristics of local and exotic chickens reared in Yirgalem and Hawassa towns, Ethiopia

Abstract

Analyzing eggs quality is so important for both consumers and for coming new chicks. Total of 300 eggs (100 eggs from each native, Sasso and Bovans brown) chicken were collected during winter of 2017 to evaluate some egg quality parameters of chickens reared at Yirgalem and Hawassa towns of Southern Ethiopia. The eggs were purchased from the householders and each egg was carefully broken on a glass sheet, and was analyzed for different quality traits. The results of the study indicated that the weight of the eggs highly varied between the genotypes and also within genotypes (between locations) the eggs of the native chickens weighed (45.20±5.53 and 39.30±4.04 g), while eggs of Sasso chickens weighed (56.40±7.07 and 56.00±7.2 g), whereas those of Bovans brown weighed (57.80±7.22 and 60.70±5.98 g) at Hawassa and Yirgalem towns, respectively. The results pertaining to the Haugh unit of the eggs (from Hawassa and Yirgalem) and of the native chickens was (74.91±15.78 and 82.55±3.82), while for Sasso chickens (86.50±11.07 and 87.04±11.10) and Bovans brown were (94.60±7.74 and 86.29±5.85), respectively.  The Haugh unit of the egg from the native chickens was lower than exotic chicken; this was observed irrespective of the locations. It was concluded that egg quality of exotic chickens in the study areas performed fairly well, but it needs further comparative study under farmers’ level and intensive farm. Key words: Egg quality traits, exotic and local chickens, Southern Ethiopia.