Development of a metabolic calorimeter system to measure heat production of domestic avian embryos during incubation

Segura, J.C., Ouellette C., Feddes J.J.R., Fasenko G.M. and Zuidhof M.J. 2006. Development of a metabolic calorimeter system to measure heat production of domestic avian embryos during incubation. Canadian Biosystems Engineering/Le génie des biosystèmes au Canada 48: 4.1 4.6. A metabolic calorimeter system was developed to facilitate collection of metabolic data from 24 embryos within an incubator. The system was designed to monitor carbon dioxide (CO2), oxygen, and water vapour over a 2.5-minute period every hour from each metabolic chamber during both the incubation (18 days) and the hatching stage (21 days). The system can be conveniently calibrated by adjusting individual calorimeter airflow rates with a volumetric flow meter. An experiment was conducted to test the system’s ability to measure embryonic heat production calculated from CO2 production data and an assumed respiratory quotient (RQ) value of 0.84 to calculate oxygen consumption. Two pre-incubation egg storage duration treatments (4 or 15 days) were used to test the system for reliability and ability to measure heat production indirectly. The system satisfactorily measured the CO2 production of chicken embryos during the 18 day incubation period. At 0 and 18 days, the production of CO2 ranged from 3 to 480 mL/d, respectively, while calculated heat production values ranged from 1 to 137 mW, respectively.