EFFECTS OF PRE-INCUBATION STORAGE TIME OF OSTRICH EGGS ON THEIR INCUBATION AND HATCHING RESULTS

The research was carried out in the “ANOC” ostrich farm in Patos/Albania, in order to determine the effects of storage period on the hatchability of 197 ostrich (Struthio camelus) eggs. One egg setting was monitored, through dividing the eggs into three groups according to their age, as following: 20-30, 10-20 and 1-10 days old, containing respectively 49, 80 and 68 eggs/group. During the hatching process, the respective parameters, such as: fecundity, embryonic mortality, weight egg loss and hatchability were recorded and monitored. After two weeks, the average weight loss of the all eggs resulted to be 0.5% more than the standard, referred as such, the instructions given by the Dutch company PAS REFORM, producer of the ostrich eggs incubation and hatching machines. The reason of the high embryonic mortality (40.7%) mainly relates with the long pre-incubation storage time. Higher sterility (42.6%) might especially relate with the high temperature stress in the farm, considering the fact that the animals were just transferred from the Netherlands to Albania. The hatching rate (29.9%), compared to the total number of the set eggs is comparable with the same parameter achieved in the UK. Out of these results, it is concluded that: the shorter the egg storage time before the setting the better will the hatching results be