ABSTRACT

The egg shell were assessed for their physical properties, proximate, functional, microbial and sensory qualities. Physical properties ranged from 38.54 to 38.92 mm for length, 27.42 to 30.80 mm for weight, 27.42 to 30.50 mm for thickness, 70.74 to 78.36 % for shape index, 30.71 to 33.08 for geometric mean diameter, 79.39 to 84.99 for Egg sphericity, 2973.90 to 3432.28 mm2 for surface area and 13259.81 to 18979.79 nun2 for volume. Proximate composition ranged from 0.37 to 0.54% for moisture content, protein content ranged from 2.82 to 4.03 %, crude fat content ranged from 0.11 to 0.25%, crude fibre content ranged from 0.01 to 0.01 %, ash content ranged from 93.09 to 94.64 %, carbohydrate content ranged from 0.77 to 2.70 %. The functional properties ranged from 18.66 to 25.44 g for foam capacity. 30.43 to 45.02 g for foam stability, 30.84 to 44.44 g for emulsion capacity, 55.32 to 72.34 g for emulsion stability, 129.00 to 142.00 g for water holding capacity, 152.00 to 187.50 for oil absorption capacity, 0.74 to 0.80 g for bulk density, 0.85 to 1.04% for swelling index and 16.00 to 20.00% for gelation capacity. The microbial load ranged from 0.81 to 0.90 cfu and from 0.72 to 1.08 CFU for bacterial count and fungal count respectively. Organoleptically, egg samples obtained from Epic life farms was rated highest (6.60) among the samples with respect to general acceptability, followed by egg samples obtained from Olokoro farms and GGM farms with a rating of6.55 and 6.50 respectively.