The Haugh Unit as a Measure of Egg Albumen Quality

Abstract

THE PROBLEM of improving the egg albumen quality in the fowl has been extensively studied. Vital to a statistical study of any trait is an objective definition and a simple, accurate, normally distributed, quantitative measurement. Although a definition of albumen quality known to satisfy all of these requirements has not been provided, many methods of measuring albumen quality have been reported in the literature. Brant, Otte and Norris (1951) have reviewed the relative merits and disadvantages, in relationship to market grades, of the various albumen quality measurements, which include: the percentage of thick albumen (Holst and Almquist, 1931, 1932), the albumen height (Wilgus and Van Wagenen, 1936), the albumen index (Heiman and Carver, 1936; Heiman and Wilhelm, 1937), the albumen area index (Parsons and Mink, 1937), the Van Wagenen visual score (Van Wagenen and Wilgus, 1934), and the Haugh unit score (Haugh, 1937). The use of Haugh unit scores has …