Vol. 9, Issue 10, Part C (2025)

This research examined how applying Short Periods of Incubation During Egg Storage (SPIDES) influences the embryonic mortality, hatchability, and chick quality of Japanese quail eggs subjected to long-term storage. A total of 360 eggs collected from 26-week-old breeder quails were allocated into four experimental groups: T₁ (stored for 21 days without SPIDES, incubated on day 22), T₂ (stored for 3 days without SPIDES, incubated on day 4), T₃ (stored for 21 days with two SPIDES treatments, incubated on day 22), and T₄ (stored for 21 days with three SPIDES treatments, incubated on day 22). All eggs were kept under 17 °C and 75% relative humidity, while SPIDES-treated groups were intermittently warmed to 37.7 °C for 3 hours at 5-day intervals. The findings revealed significant treatment effects on parameters such as storage weight loss, moisture loss, hatchability (of both total and fertile eggs), chick quality, and embryonic mortality at early and mid-stages, as well as dead-in-shell rates. The T₂ group achieved the highest hatchability and lowest embryonic mortality, whereas T₃ and T₄ also showed notable improvements in hatchability and chick quality compared with T₁. Conversely, T₁ exhibited a markedly (p<0.01) higher rate of early and mid-embryonic mortality than the other groups. Overall, SPIDES treatment successfully alleviated the adverse effects of prolonged egg storage, indicating its potential to enhance hatchability and chick viability in Japanese quail eggs. In summary, exposing eggs to 3-hour SPIDES cycles every 5 days during a 21-day storage period improved hatchability and chick quality while lowering embryonic mortality.