Impact of room temperature on quality parameters and grading of eggs collected from the hens reared in battery cage systems

Although poultry eggs are naturally preserved protein sources, their quality is lost over storage. Egg storage is commonly practiced at ambient temperature in developing countries. The current experiment was focused on the determination of the shelf life of eggs at room temperature, considering variations in quality parameters over storage. 150 eggs from 28-week-old Hyline brown hens were stored (25°C±2) for 49 days, and variations of quality parameters (such as Haugh unit, yolk index and color, yolk and albumen percentages, weight loss percentages, and pH of yolk and albumen) were checked. ‘AA’ quality eggs gradually lost quality to ‘A’ at the end of four weeks (Haugh unit with 71.75±1.09, 66.93±2.83 on Days 21 and 28, respectively), and ‘B’ grade eggs were identified on Day 35 (Haugh unit; 55.26±2.76). During storage, parameters like weight loss percentage (0.46±0.06 on Day 3 to 9.49±1.32 on Day 49), yolk weight percentage (25.42%±1.76 on Day 1 to 30.99%±0.55 on Day 49), and pH of albumen (8.06±0.20 on Day 1 to 9.30±0.06 on day 49) had increased significantly (p<0.05). Albumen weight percentage and yolk index had decreased significantly (p<0.05), while no significant difference was identified in yolk color. Hence, stakeholders (producers, manufacturers, and consumers) can expect a satisfactory quality (grade A) of eggs that are stored at room temperature (25°C) even after 28 days from the day of laying.