Effects of Pre-storage Incubation of Red-Legged Partridge (Alectoris rufa) Eggs on Hatchability and Incubation Length

Abstract

This is the first study to investigate whether pre-storage incubation (PRESI) of red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) eggs improves hatchability. To this aim, 420 red-legged partridge eggs were organized in a 2 × 3 factorial design consisting of two levels of storage length (storage for 7 and 42 d) and three levels of PRESI (incubation for 0, 6 and 12 h at 37.8C and 55% RH), resulting in six treatments consisting of 10 replications of 7 eggs each. For each treatment, egg weight losses during conservation and incubation, hatchability, chick weight at hatch, incubation length, and developmental stage at embryonic mortality were measured. It was found that 6 or 12 h of PRESI did not influence on hatchability of the fertile eggs stored during 7 d, and 6 h of PRESI did not improve the hatching rate of 42-d stored fertile eggs. However, 12 h of PRESI highly deteriorated hatchability of 42-d stored fertile eggs, increasing embryo mortality at positive development stage. Pre-storage incubation and the interaction PRESI × storage length increased egg weight loss during the storage period, though they did not influence either incubation length or chick weight at hatch. Thus, in contrast with other poultry species, PRESI does not offset the detrimental effect of the storage length on the hatchability and performance of A. rufa eggs, but even aggravates it in case of 42 d of storage. © 2014 Friends Science Publishers