Non-Invasive Assessment of Chicken Egg Fertility during Incubation using HSSE-GC-MS VOC Profiling

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) carry crucial information on chicken egg fertility. Assessing fertility before incubation holds immense potential for poultry industry efficiency. Our study used headspace sorptive extraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze egg VOCs before and during the initial 12 incubation days. A total of 162 VOCs were identified. Hexanal was significantly higher in unfertilized eggs, whereas compounds such as propan-2-ol, propan-2-one, and carboxylic acids were higher in fertilized eggs. Furthermore, the obtained multiple logistic regression model outperformed the PLS-DA model, demonstrating lower complexity and superior performance. Fertile eggs were accurately identified in the validation set in 68% to 75% of the cases during the initial 4 days, to 85% and 100% on days 6 and 8. Finally, hierarchical cluster analysis revealed novel insights into the emission dynamics of fertilized eggs, providing additional support for comprehending biological information encoded in VOCs and their connection to biochemical processes in developing embryos.