• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2013

This study was conducted to investigate the reliability of automatic cracked and bloody egg detector according to the age of the hens and the level of the detector. The results of this study are expected to be helpful in the implementation of the Korean egg grading system, which is expected to improve egg quality for consumers. An official egg grader randomly selected 1,000 eggs for each experiment (total 36,000 eggs), ran them through the automatic detector, and conducted labor inspection using the eggs that were classified by the detector as cracked, bloody, and normal eggs. The results showed that more cracked eggs were laid by hens aged 40-60 weeks than by hens aged 30 weeks (p<0.05). Also, when the detector level increased from four to seven (i.e., when it became less sensitive), its cracked eggs detection rate dropped, and the total rate of cracked eggs was consistent after the labor inspection of the classified eggs. The automatic detector achieved over 97 percent accuracy. The bloody eggs constituted only 0.005 percent of all the samples, and all the detector-detected eggs were bloody eggs after the labor inspection of both the bloody and normal egg lines. Therefore, it can be concluded that the automatic cracked and bloody egg detector was reliable and can be used in the egg grading system. Considering that cracked eggs should be less than 9 percent of first-grade eggs in the present egg grading system, the use of an automatic crack detector may help provide better-quality eggs to consumers by producing less than 5.5 percent cracked eggs.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 1998

A nondestructive quality inspection technique using acoustic impulse response method was developed for eggshell inspection. An experimental system was built to generate the impact force, to measure the response signal and to analyze the frequency spectrum. This system includes an impulse generating unit, an egg holding seal a microphone with preamplifier, and a DSP board installed on Personal Computer. A simple algorithm .was developed for crack detection. Using the developed system with algorithm, crack detection ability was evaluated and the error rate to estimate the normal egg as cracked was found to be 4% and the error rate to estimate the cracked egg as normal was also found to be 4%. This system could be adopted in industry with some modification.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.253-258
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• 1999

This study was conducted to develop an automatic egg inspection system for detecting creaked eggs based on acoustic impulse response. This system includes a sound generator, a sound sensor with signal conditioner, and a computer. The sound generator that hit the sharp of the dull edges of an egg was constructed with a ceramic ball pendulum attached to a rotary type solenoid. The signal conditioner included a pre-amplifier and a digital signal processing (DSP) board. The parameters for distinguishing cracked and normal eggs were the area, the geometric centroid and the resonance frequency of power spectrum of the acoustic signal generated. An algorithm for on-line detection of the continuous transferring eggs was developed. The performance tests resulted with 91% success rate to separate cracked and normal eggs at the rate of 1 second per an egg.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.1013-1020
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• 2017

Objective: Stripe marks, which occasionally occur on the shell, do not cause breakage to the shell and shell membranes of eggs. This study investigated the quality of intact eggs (IEs), minor stripe-marked eggs (MEs), severe stripe-marked eggs (SEs), and cracked eggs (CEs) during 3-week storage at $25^{\circ}C$. Methods: Shell eggs were collected the day after being laid and were washed. Among them, eggs without any visual cracks or stripe marks on the shells were evaluated as IEs by the plant employees using candling in a darkened egg storage room; the remaining eggs exhibited some eggshell defects. At day 3, the eggs were further categorized into IEs, MEs, SEs, CEs, and broken eggs (BEs) on the basis of the description given. Except BEs, which were discarded, the remaining eggs were stored at $25^{\circ}C$ (approximate relative humidity 50%) and then analyzed. Results: Stripe marks were observed primarily within the first 3 days after washing. At day 3, CEs had significantly (p<0.05) lower Haugh unit values, but all eggs had grades AA or A, according to the United States Department of Agriculture standard. As storage time increased, differences in egg quality between groups were more obvious. IEs had the highest eggshell breaking strength. During storage, the total plate counts and pathogens, namely Escherichia coli, Campylobacter spp., Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella spp., were not detectable in the internal content of IEs and SEs. Conclusion: In conclusion, cracks degraded egg quality severely and minor stripe marks only slightly influenced the egg quality.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.348-354
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• 2008

Egg grading is determined by exterior and interior quality. Among the evaluation methods for the egg quality, a candling method is common to identify eggs with cracked shells and interior defects. But this method is time-consuming and laborious. In addition, practically, it is challenging to detect hairline and micro cracks. In this study, an on-line inspection system based on acoustic resonance frequency analysis was developed to detect hairline cracks on eggshells. A roller conveyor was used to transfer eggs along one lane to the impact position where each of eggs rotated by the roller was excited with an impact device at four different locations on the eggshell equator. The impact device was consisted of a plastic hammer and a rotary solenoid. The acoustic response of the egg to the impact was measured with a small condenser microphone at the same position as the impact device was installed. Two acoustic parameters, correlation coefficient for normalized power spectra and standard deviation of peak resonant frequencies, were used to detect cracked eggs. Intact eggs showed relatively high correlations among the four normalized power spectra and low standard deviations of the four peak resonant frequencies. On the other hand, cracked eggs showed low correlations and high standard deviations as compared to the intact. This method allowed a crack detection rate of 97.6%.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.593-605
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• 2004

An egg has been considered as one of the most important food sources because of it's nutritional superiority and reasonable price. With the complexity of egg flow system from production to consumption in Korea, preventive measures for egg safety have been required. Therefore, our study was carried out to analyze hazards for the egg under farm level and develope preventive measures with a purpose of obtaining egg safety. To analyze biological hazards, microbial contamination of egg(normal, dirty and cracked), water, feed, manure and equipments associated with laying were investigated. One isolate of Salmonella enteritidis and S. bardo were detected from the manure and dirty egg shell respectively. The sanitary conditions in the farm were surveyed by questionaries. Confirmation of vaccination for purchasing chicks and establishment of sanitary guidances for water and type of water suppliers ought to be preceded. Feed supplier systems including feed tanks, feed pipes and hoppers were known that their contamination might give it a chance to infect individuals and egg content and shell. The safe and rapid disposal of dead chickens and rodent were reported as more crucial factors to prevent infectious disease and manage good sanitation. Egg selector and collecting belt should be kept properly not to be contaminated from egg fluids and feces. It should be also considered that regular gathering of eggs, removal of dirty or cracked ones, storage under refrigeration and the use of disposable egg tray were continuously fulfilled. Conclusively, Our results suggested that HACCP-based system for providing fresh and safe eggs to consumers should be applied to the farm.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.409-414
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• 2000

A machine vision system was built to obtain single stationary image from an egg. This system includes a CCD camera, an image processing board and a lighting system. A computer program was written to acquire, enhance and get histogram from an image. To minimize the evaluation time, the artificial neural network with the histogram of the image was used for eggshell evaluation. Various artificial neural networks with different parameters were trained and tested. The best network(64-50-1 and 128-10-1) showed an accuracy of 87.5% in evaluating eggshell. The comparison test for the elapsed processing time per an egg spent by this method(image processing and artificial neural network) and by the processing time per an egg spent by this method(image processing and artificial neural network) and by the previous method(image processing only) revealed that it was reduced to about a half(5.5s from 10.6s) in case of cracked eggs and was reduced to about one-fifth(5.5s from 21.1s) in case of normal eggs. This indicates that a fast eggshell evaluation system can be developed by using machine vision and artificial neural network.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.1495-1499
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• 2017

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of enrichment resources (a perch, dustbath, and nest) layout in furnished laying-hen cages (FC) on exterior quality of eggs. Methods: One hundred and sixty-eight (168) Hy-Line Brown laying hens at 16 weeks of age were randomly distributed to four treatments: small furnished cages (SFC), medium furnished cages type I (MFC-I), medium furnished cages type II (MFC-II), and medium furnished cages type III (MFC-III). Each treatment had 4 replicates or cages with 6 hens for SFC (24 birds for each SFC) and 12 hen/cage for MFC-I, -II, and -III (48 birds for each MFC-I, -II and -III). Following a 2-week acclimation, data collection started at 18 weeks of age and continued till 52 weeks of age. Dirtiness of egg surface or cracked shell as indicators of the exterior egg quality were recorded each week. Results: The results showed that the proportion of cracked or dirty eggs was significantly affected by the FC type (p<0.01) in that the highest proportion of cracked or dirty eggs was found in MFC-I and the lowest proportion of dirty eggs in SFC. The results of this showed that furnished cage types affected both dirty eggs and cracked eggs (p<0.01). The results also indicated that not nest but dustbath lead to more dirty eggs. Only MFC-I had higher dirty eggs at nest than other FC (p<0.01). The results of dirty eggs in MFC-I and MFC-II compared with SFC and MFC-III seemed suggest that a low position of dustbath led to more dirty eggs. Conclusion: SFC design affected exterior egg quality and the low position of dustbath in FC resulted in higher proportion of dirty eggs.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.1477-1482
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• 2016

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of diets with varying levels of calcium on egg production, shell quality and overall calcium status in aged laying hens. A total of five hundred 70-wk-old Hy-Line Brown layers were divided five groups and fed one of the five experimental diets with 3.5%, 3.8%, 4.1%, 4.4%, or 4.7% Ca, for 10 weeks. There were no significant differences in feed intake, egg production and egg weight among groups. The cracked eggs were linearly reduced as dietary Ca levels increased to 4.7% (p<0.01). A significant linear improvement for eggshell strength and thickness were determined with increasing dietary Ca levels (p<0.01). The contents of serum Ca and phosphorus were not affected by dietary Ca levels. With increase in dietary Ca levels, the tibial breaking strength slightly increased. There were no significant differences in the tibial contents of ash, Ca and phosphorus among groups. In conclusion, eggshell quality, as measured by appearance, strength and thickness of eggshell, were influenced by dietary Ca content as expected (p<0.05). These results suggested that aged laying hens require relatively higher level of Ca than required levels from current Korean feeding standards for poultry.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Poultry Science Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.53-68
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• 2004

Eggshell quality is one of the most important factors that influence hatchability. The porosity and overall quality of eggshell have a very significant effect on exchange of vital gas (carbon dioxide and oxygen) between the developing embryo and the air during incubation. Thin-shelled eggs showed the greater weight loss than do thick-shelled eggs. causing the chick to have difficulty in hatching. Thin-shelled eggs also have a much greater chance of being cracked during handling. On the other hand. thick-shelled eggs showed the higher hatchability as a result of greater fertility and lower intermediate and late embryonic mortalities. Even a small percentage improvement in the eggshell quality could result in significant saving to the breeder industry in an increasingly competitive environment. Many factors including nutrition. management practices, environmental conditions and breeding are known to be related to eggshell quality. In this review brief accounts of each factor associated with eggshell quality and hatchability were provided. We conducted three experiments to investigate the effects of dietary Ca. vitamin D3 metabolite and some bioactive materials on eggshell quality and hatching egg production. The results of our studies showed that relatively high levels of dietary Ca in combination with 25-hydroxycholecalciferol had beneficial effects on improving eggshell quality and reproductive performances in aged egg-type breeder hens. It was also suggested that the proper use of some feed additives such as isoflavon and chitosan might provide means of improving eggshell quality and reproductive performances in aged egg-type breeder hens.