New practical systems to measure eggshell quality

摘要

Modern egg grading machines have a capacity of 120,000 eggs/hour and so the visual inspection of eggs by humans ('candling') has become a critical bottleneck in the egg-sortine chain. Researchers have looked at using modern sensor technologies to replace the candling operation, with success. Some methods are based on mechanical techniques and allow investigation of the physical shell quality, such as the presence of cracks and shell strength; others can be applied to the structural strength of the whole egg or to the strength of the shell material. They have many applications, including in breeding programmes, to monitor heat stress and for studying the effect of different feeds on eggshell quality.