Egg Shell Quality

Very informative article about egg shell quality.

This article about Egg Shell Quality  helps me a lot.TQ

I think is a good article about Egg Shell Quality. Congratulations

But I would like to know your opinion about recommendation, in aged hens, to add some grams ( 2-3 gr / hen / day ) of calcium carbonate in 3-4 mm particles on top in feed in the afternoon.

And what is your better recomendation ( gr, age, time etc... )

Anticipated Thanks

Heartiest congratulations
It is really a good article about Egg Shell Quality, specially a minor thing i.e. Temperature at the time of wash which normally is not followed.
I would like to know what other precautions should be taken in case of Broiler Breeders to maintain good quality eggs , avoid cracked eggs & improve keeping quality .

Very excellent article on eggs hell quality and also provides the guide about the egg washing, egg handling, management of layers to prevent from egg shell defects.

Congratulations with the simple but comprehensive and clear overview on egg shell quality. From the nutrition side, somebody mentioned already the importance of adequate supply of some minerals (Ca, P, Trace minerals) and vitamins (D3).
More recent research and development work has documented the benificial effects of a special complex of encapsulated calciumbutyrate, on several Egg Shell Parameters (number of broken eggs, haircracks, soft eggs, dirty eggs, breaking strength) but also on inner egg quality (Haugh Units) and performance (laying rate and FCR). Contrarely to other nutritional measures, calciumbutyrate showed to impact more the elasticity of the shell that its thickness. Butyrate is known to improve gut integrity, nutrient (mineral) absorption and calcium- and energy metabolism but also reducing inflammation. The product has since been validated intensively under European and S.E. Asian conditions.

Thank you Dr. Ken for this interesting technical article about Egg Shell Quality. Regarding the cause of body checked cracked eggs, this phenomenon is primarily due external factors that affect hen to be scared or moved suddenly during the time the calcium is being classified on eggshell such as rowdiness, or noisiness. Therefore, this type of eggshell cracked is very low in eggs produced in free range or back yard hens. Other thing also would like to comment on it is that eggshell quality problem increases as hen ages. In fact the deterioration in eggshell quality in older hens is not due to lower utilization of Ca since research has proven that amount of Ca deposit on the shell (g Ca/hen/day) remain constant as hen ages. However, as hen ages egg gets bigger with no farther increase in Ca deposited on the shell resulting in thinner shell and greater number of breakages.

Thank you for the good article about Egg Shell Quality. Today the problem for consumers is: How to recognize in the market, the good quality of eggs?

Thank you Dear Dr. Ken W. Koelkebeck. Interesting article about Egg Shell Quality.
Can I have more information about the causes which affect the spent time of egg in the uterus?

Best Regards

An old, easy, very practical technic to control the egg shell quality is also the Egg Specific Gravity (Mr Harms/ Florida Univ)
The fall of the ESG is closely related to the egg shell quality.
1,083 or 1,085 at the beginning of laying
1,08 around 45 to 50 weeks the point of balance
1,078 around 60 weeks
1,075 around 70 weeks
1,073 around 80 weeks
ESG is a right marker of the egg shell quality.
The target will be to control it & to maintain the higher possible level.

The US technic to Wash eggs is not used in Europe and in a lot of other countries. disreputable? A good way to contamine all the eggs ? etc…here are the questions.
The original physiologic protection seems more efficient.

Yes, I would like to confirm the way of butyrate, but rather sodium butyrate than calcium.
There is already an excess of calcium in the laying hen diet. It is not necessary to overdo it
Sodium butyrate is widely better than calcium because sodium butyrate has a strong osmotic & electrolytic effect on the mucus cell.
The osmotic relation is strictly with Sodium, never with Calcium.
That’s all. Ph.G

I would like to comment on the post from Mr. Abdou Gad Abdallah. You write that “as hen ages egg gets bigger with no further increase in Ca deposited on the shell resulting in thinner shell and greater number of breakages”. I would like to comment on this, as I am not sure the problem is that straight forward. For instance, Curtis et al. (2005) report that during a 1 year cycle, while percentage of albumen and yolk vary greatly with age, egg shell percentage is rather stable (from 10.3 to 9.0% of total weight).

My point is that egg size is certainly NOT THE ONLY parameter which influences shell quality. We all agree that older birds will have more shell problems. But is it really due to egg size? As reported in a trial conducted by Bennet (2004), egg weight contributed to only 5% of the increased number of thin shelled eggs between 36 and 66 weeks of age. As the hens grow older, eggs of all sizes become thin shelled. When investigating shell quality problems, it is often necessary to have a broader perspective. For example, as the author of the paper posted here mentions, “older flocks produce more body checked eggs”. Since body checked eggs have weaker shells (not thinner), that may be one of the reasons why older birds have more eggs with shell problems. Bennet also mentions that bigger eggs build up momentum as they roll out of the cage. This momentum makes them more likely to crack than smaller eggs of similar shell quality.

Egg shell quality has to be approached as a multi factorial issue. Besides health problems, management, and environmental conditions (for instance heat stress), we believe that fine-tuning of nutrition can play a role in dealing with this situation. As hens get older their digestive system is certainly less efficient. For instance, absorption of nutrients (especially minerals) is impaired as hens get older, in particular after 40-45 weeks of age. Use of sodium butyrate, which helps in development and maintenance of healthy villi, can counteract this decrease in absorption.

A solution combining sodium butyrate with other important ingredients, including vitamins and organic trace minerals such as copper or zinc, is available and has been widely tested in various parts of the world. We observe that parameters such as laying rate, FCR and mortality are improved. Also, egg quality (shell and albumen) is usually better, with higher values for the Haugh units. Our latest data indicates that when using this combination, it is possible to reduce the protein level of the diet and produce eggs at a cheaper costs while maintaining a similar quality.

ovulation occurs after 10 min,first egg is expeled and the next one enters shell gland after 5hrs of ovulation.calcium is deposited in 2 phases,ist phase calcium crystals begin to form and second phase 90%calcium is deposited on shell @200mg calcium\hr.now the egg shell quality depends upon the amount of calcium present in the digestive system for shell formation.when insufficient ,the calcium from the bone reserve is used and poor egg shell quality is produced.so shell quality depends upon the amt of calcium present in the gizzard at lights on.this is the basic,now how to encouragegood shell quality,1]-encourage
max feed during last 6 hrs of day,2]provide70% cal 4mm size to encourageretention in gizzard[night storage],3]provision of oyster grit,4]avoid heat stress as it delays ovipositionand poor shell quality.5]proper mangement of respiratiory virus..6]nutrition.
the article is to basic in literature but informative

Thank you Dr. Ken really it was simple and useful article about Egg Shell Quality. I would like to comment on diseases affected gut and prevent the absoposion of digesta such as cococidiosis. Also .the shelf live of the egg within the stander conditions
My thanks to Dr Abdou ,Mathieu, Philippeand Nitin for their deep and useful commitments

Interesting article about Egg Shell Quality. Very high appreciation for the imput from Dr. Philippe Gossart and Mr. Mathieu Cortyl. Dr. Gossart has been one of the pioneers in Europe on sodium butyrate and no doubt he is very knowlegeable about this salt. It is very right that SODIUM has a stronger osmotic (and electrolytic) effect than calcium. Maybe this may explain the signficantly higher incidence of dirty eggs with sodium salts than with calcium salts. With calciumbutyrate we always measure significant less dirty eggs and dryer litter moisture than with sodiumbutyrate. Re-enforcing monovalent minerals (salts) indeed may strengthen the egg shell, one of the valid options Mr. Cortyl mentions as well. Otherwise it is also very clear from Mr. Cortyl his comment that the major effect of butyrate is not linked to the cation (whether sodium or calcium), but from the anion (villi and mucosa integrity).
Likewise Dr. Gossart has pioneered on sodiumbutyrate 20 years ago, we have done similar ground breaking work with other butyrate salts especially with a specially coated calcium butyrate salt inbedded in two specific carriers (patented process). Results in laying and breeding hens but also in broilers have been striking so far and always outperformed the traditional sodiumbutyrate products on several parameters. Obviously Dr. Gossart seems not to have knowledge of, experience with, or access to those data, allthough they have been confirmed by some 40 trials already in research bodies like IRTA (Spain), INRA (France), CCL and Schothorst (Netherlands), ILVO (Belgium), institutes and universities in Germany, Poland, Czeck Republic, Croatia etc. Many have been published already or communicated in congresses. Bringing more calcium to the diet in an organic form is of course no objection, since this has always been positive : it allows to lower mineral sources (less appetising limestone for example). Organic calcium has higher nutritional value than anorganic calcium.
We very much appreciate Dr. Gossart knowledge and experience with sodiumbutyrate, but are happy to invite Philippe to brief him correctly about this special type of calciumbutyrate. Welcome ! L.G.