Egg Morphology, Quality and Chemical Characteristics of Ostrich Struthio camelus camelus

The objective of this first native study was to determined morphology, quality and chemical characteristics of ostrich Struthio camelus eggs. A total of 97 eggs were collected from ostrich flocks (6 females and 3 males) domestic subspecies Struthio camelus camelus reared in the zoo of Baghdad city during the period from June 14th of 2010 to October 15th of 2011. The data obtained revealed that egg breadth, egg length and egg shape index were 12.6 cm, 16.9 cm and 74.6 respectively, egg weight, egg volume, egg specific gravity were 1576 gm, 1368.3 cm3, 1.15 gm/cm3 respectively, albumen height, yolk height, yolk diameter and yolk index were 12.7 mm, 13.6 mm, 30.8 mm and 0.44 respectively. This survey showed that ostrich egg components were 20.23% shell, 31.12% yolk and 48.65% albumen during the third year of production. Chemical composition of ostrich eggs showed that moisture were 87.69 and 48.04%, ash 1.05 and 1.10%, protein 11.84 and 17.76%, carbohydrates 0.71 and 0.95% of albumen and yolk materials respectively, lipids and cholesterol were 29.87% and 11.21 mg/gm of yolk materials. Minerals contents in egg albumen and yolk were; calcium (26 and 133 ppm), phosphorous (13 and 375 ppm), magnesium (8 and 17 ppm), iron (1 and 8 ppm), potassium (150 and 114 ppm), copper (0.5 and 2 ppm), zinc (0.5 and 1 ppm), manganese (1 and 2 ppm) respectively. In conclusion, compared with the hen’s egg, the ostrich egg has similar chemical and nutritive characteristics, but a lower cholesterol content.