Chicken Development

Introduction

The chicken (taxon-Gallus Gallus gallus) embryo develops and hatches in 20-21 days and has been extensively used in embryology studies.

Fertilized eggs can be easily maintained in humidified incubators and during early stages of development the embryo floats on to of the egg yolk that it is using for nutrition. As the embryo grows it sinks into, or below the, yolk. The regular appearance of somites allowed early experimenters to acurately stage the embryo. The embryo was accessible and easy to manipulate (limb grafts/removal etc) that were informative about developmental processes. Chicken cells and tissues (neural ganglia/fragments) are also easy to grow in tissue culture. The discovery that quail cells have a different nuclear appearance meant that transplanted cells (chick/quail chimeras) could be tracked during development. For example, LeDourian's studies showed how neural crest cells migrate widely throughout the embryo.

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Cite this page: Hill, M.A. (2024, April 19) Embryology Chicken Development. Retrieved from https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Chicken_Development

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