Effect of Egg Weight on External and Internal Qualities, Physiological and Hatching Success of Japanese Quail Eggs (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

ABSTRACT This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of egg weight and egg physical characteristics on embryonic development, hatchability, and hatchling weight of Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica). In total, 689 eggs were classified in two categories: small (<13.5 g) or large (≥13.5 g), and different external eggshell and internal quality traits were measured. On days 6 and 14 of incubation, tissue triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) were extracted from embryos in both egg sizes and analyzed. Relative to internal egg-quality traits, large eggs had significantly high...