Are American turkey egg numbers all they are cracked up to be?
According to a United States Department of Agriculture news release, more than 23 percent of all American turkey eggs laid in 1997 did not hatch.
“Last year, more than 430 million turkey eggs were laid …, but nearly 100 million failed to hatch,” said Dan Glickman, U.S. agriculture secretary.
The USDA is pointing the finger at cool storage.
When egg incubators reach capacity, hatchery workers place the excess eggs in cool storage rooms until more space becomes available. Some eggs remain in storage for up to 25 days.
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Researchers at the USDA say nearly half the eggs’ cells die in storage after a short period resulting in embryonic death. However, other factors also play a role.
Gaylene Fasenko, a researcher at the University of Alberta, said there is no way to ensure an egg will live or die.
“Hatching eggs are affected by anything from the age of the bird (to) the nutrition of the parents (and) the fertility,” she said.
Other factors
The environment an egg is subjected to and the people responsible for it also contribute to its ability to survive.
“The turkey egg is not laid in a pristine environment,” Fasenko said.
“If (the eggs) are not washed properly with hot water and a good disinfectant, you can have movement of micro-organisms from the surface of the egg through the pores of the shell into the inside and that will cause you to have a rotten egg. When you set that egg, it has the potential to explode and contaminate all the other eggs in the incubator.”
Doug Klem, a worker at Lilydale Hatchery in Edmonton, said the USDA’s numbers are not surprising.
“That’s quite normal because it is all relative to (the hen’s) age,” Klem said. “Normally, (eggs) will have anywhere from five to seven percent mortality rate right off of a young flock that will be unfertile. As breeders get older, fertilities usually drop.”
Klem says eggs can be safely stored for seven days but after that, the mortality rate of the embryos in the eggs increase by two percent a day.
Another factor in egg production is determined by breeders.
Fasenko and Klem say that as farmers breed larger turkeys, their egg production decreases.
“Depending upon what they want to achieve, whether it is hatchability or weight, usually you have to give up something to get something,” Klem said. “A lot of times you do lose egg production to breed for bigger birds.”
An average hen lays between 70 and 100 eggs a year.
