A study on egg quality and hatching traits of indigenous and exotic chickens reared in Silte zone, Southern Ethiopia

The objective of this study was to evaluate egg quality and hatchability of indigenous and exotic chickens in the midland, lowland, and highland agroecological zones of the Silte zone. One district was selected from each agroecological zone, and a total of 399 households (133 from each district) were randomly chosen from six purposefully selected Kebles to collect data on egg hatchability. For external and internal egg quality evaluation, 300 eggs (150 from indigenous and 150 from exotic chickens from each agroecology) were collected. The study found that Sasso chickens had better egg quality in terms of egg weight, yolk width, yolk height, albumen height, yolk index, and Haugh unit compared to indigenous chickens in both the highland and lowland areas. In the highland area, Sasso chickens had higher values for egg weight, yolk width, yolk height, albumen height, yolk index, and Haugh unit compared to the lowland area. This suggests that Sasso chickens performed better in terms of egg quality in both the highland and lowland areas compared to indigenous chickens. The hatchability percentages of Sasso and Koekoek chickens were 70.8 ± 14.1 and 69.7 ± 12.7, respectively, in the midland area. This suggests that Sasso and Koekoek chickens performed well in terms of hatchability, followed by indigenous chicken eggs. However, approximately 68% of respondents did not use exotic chicken eggs for hatching. The study suggests that practicing hatching of exotic chicken eggs could be beneficial in increasing the productivity of indigenous chickens.