During the research, the researchers, including Kunal Dey, assistant professor at the Center for Biological Sciences of the University of Delhi, examined 12 eggs from eight chickens and found that the egg fat content of the Kadam Nath chicken's egg was significantly lower than that of its avian counterparts.
Interestingly, all of
the other proteins, such as proteins involved in sperm production, were all
similar to those of other chickens' eggs.
This study could have big implications in the dairy and egg industries of India, where the consumption of this bird's egg is rare but the consumption of dairy products is very common.
How did this research happen?
The birds that laid the eggs were obtained from Madhya Pradesh in Central India. They are known as Kadam Nath because of their fur pattern. They lay green eggs, which are also rare and hard to find.
The researchers bred a chicken strain with Kadam Nath eggs and then extracted the parts of the egg that make it hard for fertilization. These are the two chambers of the three-chambered egg (ovum). Then, they used genetic techniques to determine the order of the egg's reproductive cells, called ova.
Where did the research
take place?
The researchers studied these ova by growing them in the laboratory. They cultured them to show that the three chambers do not have distinct roles and that there is a single ova inside all of them.
How do eggs develop?
The three chambers and the internal material are named as S-Ovum, C-Spermum and T-Ovum.
Why did the researchers conclude that the egg fat is less in this bird's egg than in other eggs?
The researchers reasoned that the difference in egg fat is because the main part of the egg where most of the protein (ovum) is made is in the S-Ovum chamber.
Because the body's blood supply gets blocked when the egg is being formed, the C-Spermum chamber can't produce protein and there is no fluid there. When the T-Ovum chamber finally develops, it can make egg fat, which is needed for the body to grow, and its fat content is lower than that of the other birds'.
How does this compare
to other birds?
During embryogenesis, egg-bearing birds and other animals (both vertebrates and invertebrates) have all the three chambers of an egg. But in the case of an egg that has been fertilized, the eggs are different, and they are usually not similar to each other.
For instance, the American oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) and the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) are similar in appearance to Kadam Nath chickens.
However, this study has not shown that the eggs of the Indian Kadam Nath chicken are superior to those of other birds in egg composition. It has not studied the embryogenic development of their eggs, so we don't know if they mature faster or develop differently.
These egg-eating bodies produce much less fat and the fat body can gradually lose weight.