Quality characterization of chicken eggs from backyard poultry or commercial poultry in Algeria

Abstract

The present study was conducted to characterize the egg quality traits of backyard poultry (BACK) compared to those obtained by a commercial poultry (COM). A total of 540 eggs were analyzed for external and internal qualities. As expected, some important productive traits such as egg weight and production resulted higher in COM poultry. However, eggs from BACK poultry presented a higher Yolk to albumen ratio (50.71 vs. 43.97; p < 0.0001) as well as Haugh units (81.21 vs.79.43; p < 0.0001) and yolk weight (16.98 g vs. 16.06 g; p < 0.0001) than those laid by the Commercial poultry. According to external and internal characteristics, eggs were clustered into three separate groups (G): (G1) was represented by eggs with low external and high internal qualities (25, 18% of total eggs); (G2) included eggs with average external and internal qualities (50% of total eggs) and (G3) included eggs with high external …