• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2012

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of age of laying hens and grade of shell abnormality on internal egg quality. At each week, 1,000 eggs were randomly selected from 21,000 eggs laid by Hy-Line hens (100,000 birds) aged from 56 to 62 wk. The samples were divided into normal and externally abnormal eggs by an official egg grader. Then, egg quality including egg weight, egg white height, Haugh unit and yolk color was evaluated from each normal and abnormal eggs. The production rate of externally normal and abnormal eggs was 81.22 and 18.78%, respectively. No difference found in the production rate by the increase of hen's age, but Haugh unit of eggs from hens of 60-wk-old was higher (p<0.05) than that of 56-wk-old. When the same age groups were compared, egg white height and Haugh unit were lower in eggs which were externally abnormal. When the grade of abnormality increased, egg white height and Haugh unit were decreased further (p<0.05). Among the externally abnormal eggs, malformation showed the lowest Haugh unit. In conclusion, the shell abnormality of eggs laid by hens aged 56 to 62 wk was closely related with internal egg quality. Therefore, the grading external egg quality in the present egg grading system is directly related with the internal egg freshness.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.233-238
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• 1995

A computer vision system was built to generate images of a single, stationary egg. This system includes a CGD camera, a frame grabber, and incandescent back lighting system. Image processing algorithms were developed to inspect egg shell and to sort eggs. Those values of both gray level and area of dark spots in the egg image were used as criteria to detect holes in egg and those values of both area and roundness of dark spots in the egg image were used to detect cracks in egg. For a sample of 300 eggs, this system was able to correctly analyze an egg for the presence of a defect 97.5% of the time. The weights of eggs were found to be linear to both the projected area and the perimeter of eggs viewed from above. Those two values were used as criteria to sort eggs. The coefficients of determination(r$^2$) for the regression equations between weights and those two values were 0.967 and 0.972 in the two sets of experiment. Accuracies in grading were found to be 95.6% and 96.7% as compared with results from sizing by electronic weight scale.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.223-230
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• 2015

Eggs are an important source of protein for the human diet. Consumers want fresher, more delicious and more sanitary eggs. In Korea, the Shell Egg Grading system (EGS) was employed in 2001. The portion of graded shell eggs has increased every year, but graded shell eggs account for only 6% of all eggs. The EGS should satisfy producers, distributors and consumers. However, the EGS does not have an official function because of many problems. Consumers cannot select various graded shell eggs in the market, and producers do not receive enough profit even though they produce top-quality graded shell eggs. There are few studies on the EGS, Therefore, this study was performed to improve the EGS. We surveyed the EGS, GP Centers and farmers. Large companies (farmers) are more satisfied than small companies with the EGS. There was a high tendency for the companies (farmers) that are not involved with the EGS to think that graded and ungraded shell eggs are similar, in contrast to the companies (farmers) connected to the EGS. We should have to change the grading system of grade shell eggs, establish of the cold chain system, change of the law for the school meals, minimize payment for the grading shell eggs for developing EGS. Based on this study, the egg industry can benefit through the improvement of the EGS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.834-841
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• 1996

Egg production in Korea is becoming automated with a large scale farm. Although many operations in egg production have been and cracks are regraded as a critical problem. A computer vision system was built to generate images of a single , stationary egg. This system includes a CCD camera, a frame grabber board, a personal computer (IBM PC AT 486) and an incandescent back lighting system. Image processing algorithms were developed to inspect egg shell and to sort eggs. Those values of both gray level and area of dark spots in the egg image were used as criteria to detect holes in egg and those values of both area and roundness of dark spots in the egg and those values of both area and roundness of dark spots in the egg image were used to detect cracks in egg. Fro a sample of 300 eggs. this system was able to correctly analyze an egg for the presence of a defect 97.5% of the time. The weights of eggs were found to be linear to both the projected area and the perimeter of eggs v ewed from above. Those two values were used as criteria to sort eggs. Accuracy in grading was found to be 96.7% as compared with results from weight by electronic scale.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2012

The objective of this study was to assess the external and internal quality traits of eggs in wholesale egg market in Colombo, Sri Lanka and the effect of storage period in egg quality traits in the same market after receiving the eggs. First, a total of 482 fresh eggs were randomly collected from the above market and external egg quality traits were determined and recorded according to the definitions given in the Specification for Chicken Egg SLS 959:1992. After that, a total of 288 fresh eggs were randomly collected and various external and internal egg quality traits were measured and recorded according to the standard procedures over a storage period of 1, 3 and 5 d after receiving the fresh eggs to the wholesale market. Information about the shops was also collected using a pretested questionnaire. Using the recorded data, shape index, Haugh unit, albumen index and yolk index were calculated for each egg. Average weight, width, length and shape index of the eggs in the sample was 59.96 g, 4.33 cm, 5.78 cm and 75.03, respectively. Average shape index value was much closer to the standard value of 74. From the total sample 80.5% eggs had a normal and sound shape. However only 60.37% of the eggs are in the desirable quality range specified in SLS 959:1992, when the overall shell quality of the sample is considered based on shell cleanliness, defects and shape. The results of the current study indicated that eggs had significant (p<0.05) deterioration of all internal quality parameters tested with increasing storage time. However the effect was not significant (p>0.05) between the storage periods of 3 and 5 d after receiving eggs except for yolk color and yolk height. Desirable category of eggs had reduced and rejections had increased with the storage period. Main problems associated with the particular market were less space availability, higher percentages of dirty eggs, unavailability of proper packaging materials, no standard packaging system for eggs, and not implementing a standard grading system for eggs. Therefore the results of this study suggest that proper egg handling and storage conditions such as low temperature storage may be implemented to increase the proportion of desirable quality eggs in the above market.

• Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2008

Broken eggs not only cause the economic loss in the egg producing industry, but also may not be good for the consumer's health. In order to identify the causes of eggshell breakage in laying hen houses, analyses on the status of eggshell breakage in the step of egg conveyer system of the laying hen house were conducted. The survey of eggshell breakage rate was implemented by four different stages egg conveying system. In the results, the breakage rate showed 4.7% in the egg collection belt, 2.5% in the egg elevator, 1.7% in the egg grading system and 0.9% in the egg conveyor belt. In particular, to Hy-line Brown variety, as the hens' raising week old increased, the breakage rate of eggshell increased while the strength of eggshell decreased. In the regression analysis between the breakage rate of eggshell and the strength of eggshell, the coefficient of determination ($R^2$) by the test of significance was computed as 0.7, therefore the changes of the strength of eggshell affects the breakage rate of eggshell. However, between the strength of eggshell and thickness of egg shell, and between the strength of eggshell and strain of eggshell, there was no significant difference detected in the regression analysis.