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<article xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="1.0" article-type="healthcare" lang="en"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">IJCRR</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">I Journ Cur Res Re</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>International Journal of Current Research and Review</journal-title><abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="pubmed">I Journ Cur Res Re</abbrev-journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">2231-2196</issn><issn pub-type="opub">0975-5241</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Radiance Research Academy</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">587</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="doi"/><article-id pub-id-type="doi-url"/><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Healthcare</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL EGG QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF THREE VARIETIES OF HELMETED GUINEA FOWL (NUMIDAMELEAGRIS) IN NIGERIA&#13;
</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>N.</surname><given-names>Onunkwo D.</given-names></name></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>C.</surname><given-names>Okoro I.</given-names></name></contrib></contrib-group><volume/><issue/><fpage>10</fpage><lpage>17</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>This article is copyright of Popeye Publishing, 2009</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2009</copyright-year><license license-type="open-access" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><license-p>This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) Licence. You may share and adapt the material, but must give appropriate credit to the source, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made.</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>An investigation of the egg quality characteristics of three varieties of guinea fowls was studied. The experimental varieties were Pearl (Sake), Lavender (Hurudu) and Black (Angulu). Base populations of 180 guinea fowls were used to generate 144 F1 females comprising 48 birds per variety. Each variety was divided into three randomized replicates containing 16 birds per replicate. Data were collected fortnightly on egg quality traits. Parameters collected for egg quality traits include: Egg Weight (EW), Egg Length (EL), Egg Width (EWD), Egg Index (EI), Shell Thickness (ST), Shell Weight (SW), Albumen Height (AH), Albumen Weight (AW), Albumen Diameter (AD), Yolk Length (YL), Yolk Height (YH), Yolk Weight (YW), Yolk Diameter (YD), Yolk Index (YI), and Haugh Unit (HU). The egg quality data were treated statistically. The Pearl, Lavender and Black varieties showed great&#13;
similarities in two important indices for assessing egg quality traits, namely: Haugh unit (88.95, 89.04, and 88.56) and yolk index values (0.40, 0.41, and 0.42) respectively. Based on the mean internal egg quality values, Differences were observed in albumen weight (18.23, 19.79 and 17.36) and yolk diameter (32.31, 31.91 and 31.50) of the Pearl, Lavender and Black varieties respectively. The Lavender and Pearl varieties recorded higher values in both traits than the Black. The result of the mean external egg quality traits showed that the Pearl and Lavender varieties are similarly longer and wider than the Black variety. The Black&#13;
variety however outperformed the Pearl variety in shell thickness. The Pearl and Lavender varieties showed more similarity in performance than the Black. However, since, the Lavender variety performed better than the Pearl variety in albumen weight and shell thickness, it is thus recommended.&#13;
</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Egg quality</kwd><kwd> Egg characteristics</kwd><kwd> Guinea fowl</kwd><kwd> Varieties</kwd></kwd-group></article-meta></front></article>
