It allows growing broiler chickens with strong immunity to viral diseases
Russian scientists have developed an inexpensive, safe, and reliable packed eggs surface disinfection technology. This technology helps to kill bacteria, including salmonella, on eggshells.
Also, it allows growing broiler chickens with strong immunity to viral diseases. Packed eggs are disinfected with 50 nanoseconds (one billionth of a second) electron beam. Disinfection takes place in plastic containers.
The description of the technology was published in Food and Bioproducts Processing.
“Disinfection of the packed eggs protects eggs from subsequent contamination during storage”, said Sergey Sokovnin, a professor at Ural Federal University and Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Science. “We found out that 5 kGy is enough for disinfection. Such dose allows to disinfect container and eggshells but does not affect the physical properties of the protein, yolk, and shell, or their composition. The size of the eggs does not matter.”
Disinfection does not affect the quality of meat and the volume of chicks. So, if 63% of chickens hatch from ordinary eggs, then from processed ones – 64%. But the difference is that healthy chickens emerge from the disinfected eggs.
The technology, according to scientists, can also be used to disinfect the surface of eggs of other birds, as well as products with peels or another natural packaging (seeds, bananas, oranges).