Alternative Egg Production: Duration of internal egg quality of laying hens created in cage-free system

<p>The present study evaluated the duration of internal quality of cage-free eggs in the first few hours of storage under environment temperature. For this, 480 eggs of Isa Brown® laying hens, created on the cage-free system, with 60 weeks age were utilized. The eggs were distributed in an completely randomized design composed by eight periods: (fresh eggs and eggs with: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 hours of storage), with 60 repetitions each. The analyzed variables were: egg weight, shell percentages, albumen and yolk; Haugh unit and yolk index. The obtained results were submitted to variance analysis and the averages compared by the Tukey test on 5% significance. There were not significant differences (P>0.05) on the eggs’ weight, on the shell, albumen and yolk’s percentages and on the yolk index of the eggs on the hours of storage. There was, however, significant effect (P<0.05) of the hours of storage on the eggs’ Haugh unit. The registered Haugh unit average values on the 3^rd hour were bigger than the ones observed between the 5^th and 7^thhour, but kept similar to the fresh eggs and to the other evaluation periods. It was concluded that the duration of internal egg quality was kept similar during the first seven hours of storage.</p>