Characterization in the Egg Quality of Three Species of Phasianidae Birds

Rock partridge (Alectoris graeca), Common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), and Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) are three poultry species from the Phasianidae family birds that are kept for meat and egg production in the Republic of Turkey. This research was carried out to characterize the egg quality of Rock partridge (RP), Common pheasant (CP), and Japanese quail (JQ). The eggs parameter of egg weight (EW), shape index (SI), yolk index (YI), albumen index (AI), shell weight (SW), haugh unit (HU), yolk weight (YW), albumen weight (AW), yolk ratio (YR), albumen ratio (AR) and shell ratio (SR) were measured for data analysis. A total of 372 eggs, including 100 eggs of partridges, 200 eggs of pheasant, and 72 eggs of quail were used in this study. A Canonical Discriminant Analysis (CDA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) were used in this study to characterize three different types of eggs using SPSS. 16.0 package. The results showed that nine egg parameters of AR, YI, SI, YW, AW, YR, AI, HU, and SR are identified as discriminant variables for three egg types. The results showed that the canonical correlation (R) value in this study was high, i.e., 0.98 (Function 1) and 0.79 (Function 2). The Mahalonobis distance (D2) in this study ranged from 15.28 (RP-CP) to 27.94 (CP-JQ). In conclusion, the Phasianidae poultries in this study have different egg quality traits and can be used as the species marker.