Abstract

In Ethiopia, Rhode Island Red (RIR) breed of chickens acclimatize very well to the existing production environment with fairly reasonable level of production. Unfortunately however, there is a serious complaint about the poor hatchability of their eggs. This study was conducted at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) to study the effect of oil spraying and elevated Relative Humidity (RH) on hatchability of RIR eggs. Five treatments comprising of 80-85%RH, 80-85%RH plus oil spraying, 90%RH, 90%RH starting from 12th day of incubation and 90%RH during hatching were studied in CRD with four replications. The results obtained revealed that there was no statistically significant difference (Plt;0.05) between the treatments in percent fertility and hatchability. Spraying with vegetable oil negatively affected fertility, whereas, oil spraying as well as elevated relative humidity of 90% during the larger segment of the incubation period were found to be equally depressive in hatchability. More over the weight loss recorded from the eggs sprayed with oil was lower than the others indicating that oil spraying prevented the recommended level of weight loss through water evaporation, which in turn resulted in lower hatchability. On the contrary increasing of relative humidity from 80-85% to 90% during hatching period seem to increase hatchability of RIR eggs.