The Storage of Hatching Eggs and the Post-Hatching Body Weights of Chickens

THE prolonged storage of chicken hatching eggs adversely affects the developing embryo during incubation. Such storage delays the initiation of embryonic development, reduces the body weight of the 7 and 14 day embryos, increases the rate of embryonic metabolism, lengthens the incubation period and increases embryonic mortality (Kaufman 1938Kaufman 1939Kaufman 1957; Funk 1947). Data collected in the course of other experiments, indicated a possible effect of hatching egg storage upon post-hatching body weights of chickens. This paper reports those findings. PROCEDURES AND RESULTS The study involved four experiments: Experiment 1. In 1956, one male and ten female White Rocks were placed in each of nine single-sire mating pens. The eggs were stored for 1–7, 8–14 and 15–21 days before incubation. At hatching, all the progeny of each dam were placed in one of three brooder houses. At nine weeks of age the chickens were individually weighed. The …