Estimation of bone mineral density and breaking strength of laying hens based on scans of computed tomography for body composition analysis

ABSTRACT1. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prediction potential of a computer tomography (CT) data collection protocol for determining total body composition used for analysis of tibiotarsal bone quality features.2. The CT image acquisition was performed on 54 healthy TETRA SL genotype laying hens at 90 weeks of age as well as in the 69th week of the egg production period in vivo and their tibiotarsal bones, ex vivo.3. Breaking strengths and ash content of the tibiotarsal bones were estimated based on the calculated mineral density of skeletal and tibiotarsal bones by means of CT with an estimation accuracy R2 0.963 and 0.975, respectively.4. In conclusion, the current investigation demonstrated that the acquisition protocol of CT for total-body composition analysis has a good potential for measuring the mineral status and breaking strength of the reference bone in laying hen.