ABSTRACT An experiment was performed to evaluate the effect of the incubation system ― multiple-stage (MS) and single-stage (SS) ― on the characteristics at hatching, intestinal morphology, metabolism, and performance of Cobb-500 chickens from 1 to 40 d of age. A total of 1,968 fertile eggs were incubated in two setters under commercial conditions. Birds hatched in SS were longer than those hatched in MS, and the females had higher relative intestinal weight compared with males. However, at hatching, there […]

A total of 61,920 eggs from a single commercial line of broiler breeders was incubated. The effect of different incubation temperatures (T), measured by the wet bulb thermometer in degrees Celsius (ºC), was evaluated with eggs classified by weight (P) from broiler breeders with different ages (I). Evaluation of the percentages of total hatched, hatchability, egg weight loss and embryo mortality was performed. A completely randomized experimental design in a factorial 3 x 4 x 5, representing, respectively, three T […]