Dataset Information

Automatic Assessment of Keel Bone Damage in Laying Hens at the Slaughter Line.

ABSTRACT: Keel bone damage (KBD) can be found in all commercial laying hen flocks with a wide range of 23% to 69% of hens/flock found to be affected in this study. As KBD may be linked with chronic pain and a decrease in mobility, it is a serious welfare problem. An automatic assessment system at the slaughter line could support the detection of KBD and would have the advantage of being standardized and fast scoring including high sample sizes. A 2MP stereo camera combined with an IDS imaging color camera was used for the automatic assessment. A trained human assessor visually scored KBD in defeathered hens during the slaughter process and compared results with further human assessors and automatic recording. In a first step, an algorithm was developed on the basis of assessments of keel status of 2287 hens of different genetics with varying degrees of KBD. In two optimization steps, performance data were calculated, and flock prevalences were determined, which were compared between the assessor and the automatic system. The proposed technique finally reached a sensitivity of 0.95, specificity of 0.77, accuracy of 0.86 and precision of 0.81. In the last optimization step, the automatic system scored on average about 10.5% points lower KBD prevalences than the human assessor. However, a proposed change of scoring system (setting the limit for KBD at 0.5 cm deviation from the straight line) would lower this deviation. We conclude that the developed automatic scoring technique is a reliable and potentially valuable tool for the assessment of KBD.

SUBMITTER: Jung L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7827378 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Automatic Assessment of Keel Bone Damage in Laying Hens at the Slaughter Line.

Jung Lisa L Nasirahmadi Abozar A Schulte-Landwehr Jan J Knierim Ute U

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20210112 1

Keel bone damage (KBD) can be found in all commercial laying hen flocks with a wide range of 23% to 69% of hens/flock found to be affected in this study. As KBD may be linked with chronic pain and a decrease in mobility, it is a serious welfare problem. An automatic assessment system at the slaughter line could support the detection of KBD and would have the advantage of being standardized and fast scoring including high sample sizes. A 2MP stereo camera combined with an IDS imaging color camera ...[more]

PMID: 33445636

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Project description:Keel bone fractures (KBF) in commercial poultry production systems are a major welfare problem with possible economic consequences for the poultry industry. Recent investigations suggest that the overall situation may be worsening. Depending on the housing system, fracture prevalences exceeding 80% have been reported from different countries. No specific causes have yet been identified and this has consequently hampered risk factor identification. The objective of the current study was to investigate the prevalence of KBF in Danish layer hens and to identify risk factors in relation to KBF in all major productions systems, including parent stock production. For risk factor identification, production data from the included flocks was used. In total, 4794 birds from 40 flocks were investigated at end-of-lay. All birds were euthanized on farm and underwent inspection and palpation followed by necropsy. All observations were recorded and subsequently analysed using the SAS statistical software package. In flocks from non-caged systems, fracture prevalence in the range 53%-100%, was observed whereas the prevalence in flocks from enriched cages ranged between 50-98%. Furthermore, often multiple fractures (≥4) were observed in individual birds (range 5-81% of the birds with fractures) depending on the flock. The localization of the fractures at the distal end of the keel bone is highly consistent in all flocks (>96%). Macroscopically the fractures varied morphologically from an appearance with an almost total absence of callus, most frequently observed in caged birds, to large callus formations in and around the fracture lines, which was a typical finding in non-caged birds. Despite being housed under cage-free conditions, parent birds had significantly fewer fractures (all flocks were 60 weeks old) per bird, than other birds from cage-free systems. The body weight at end-of-lay had an effect on the risk of having fractures, heavy hens have significantly fewer fractures at end-of-lay. The older the hens were at onset of lay, the lower was the flock prevalence at end-of-lay. Additionally, the daily egg size at onset of lay was of importance for the risk of developing fractures, the production of heavier eggs initially, resulted in higher fracture prevalence at depopulation. The odds ratio of body weight, (+100 g) was 0.97, age at onset of lay (+1 week) was 0.87 and daily egg weight at onset (+1 gram) was 1.03. In conclusion, the study demonstrated a very high prevalence of KBF in hens from all production systems and identified hen size, age at onset of lay and daily egg weight at onset of lay to be major risk factors for development of KBF in the modern laying hen. Further research regarding this is warranted to strengthen the longevity and enhance the welfare of laying hens.

Project description:Keel bone fractures affect welfare, health, and production performance in laying hens. A total of one hundred and twenty 35-wk-old Hy-line Brown laying hens with normal keel (NK) bone were housed in furnished cages and studied for ten weeks to investigate the underlying mechanism of keel bone fractures. At 45 wk of age, the keel bone state of birds was assessed by palpation and X-ray, and laying hens were recognized as NK and fractured keel (FK) birds according to the presence or absence of fractures in keel bone. The serum samples of 10 NK and 10 FK birds were collected to determine bone metabolism-related indexes and slaughtered to collect keel bones for RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), Micro-CT, and histopathological staining analyses. The results showed that the concentrations of Ca, phosphorus, calcitonin, 25-hydroxyvitamin D3, and osteocalcin and activities of alkaline phosphatase and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) in serum samples of FK birds were lower than those of NK birds (P < 0.05), but the concentrations of parathyroid hormone, osteoprotegerin, and corticosterone in serum samples of FK birds were higher than those of NK birds (P < 0.05). TRAP staining displayed that FK bone increased the number of osteoclasts (P < 0.05). Micro-CT analysis indicated that FK bone decreased bone mineral density (P < 0.05). Transcriptome sequencing analysis of NK and FK bones identified 214 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (|log2FoldChange| > 1, P < 0.05), among which 88 were upregulated and 126 downregulated. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway (KEGG) analysis indicated that 14 DEGs related to skeletal muscle movement and bone Ca transport (COL6A1, COL6A2, COL6A3, PDGFA, MYLK2, EGF, CAV3, ADRA1D, BDKRB1, CACNA1S, TNN, TNNC1, TNNC2, and RYR3) were enriched in focal adhesion and Ca signaling pathway, regulating bone quality. This study suggests that abnormal bone metabolism related to keel bone fractures is possibly responded to fracture healing in laying hens.

Project description:Laying hens often suffer from keel bone damage (KBD) that includes pathologies with different etiologies, like diverse forms of fractures and deviations. Since KBD is a problem in all countries and housing systems, methods for the assessment of deviations are urgently needed. Comparisons between genetic lines and between studies are important to detect underlying mechanisms. Field researchers often use palpation as a low-cost and feasible technique for the assessment of KBD. In contrast to palpation, radiography is effective and highly precise at least in detecting keel bone fractures. The aim of this study was to: i) develop a scoring system to assess keel bone deviations from radiographs, ii) to assess inter- and intra-observer reliability of this scoring system, and iii) to investigate whether fractures and deviations of the keel are correlated. In total, 192 hens were used for the investigation. Digital radiographs were taken and evaluated for all hens after slaughter. We developed a tagged visual analog scale with two extreme images as anchors and four intermediate tags, resulting in six images representing the range from "no deviation" to "highly deviated" on a 10 cm line. Eleven participants scored 50 radiographs of keels with varying degree of severity, whereas five images were scored twice to assess intra-observer reliability. Intraclass correlation coefficient for inter-observer reliability was 0.979 with a confidence interval of 0.968 < ICC < 0.987 (F49,268 = 54.2, p < 0.0001). Intraclass correlation coefficient for intra-observer reliability was 0.831 with a confidence interval of 0.727 < ICC < 0.898 (F54,55 = 10.8, p < 0.0001). Individual intra-observer reliability ranged from 0.6 to 0.949. The Spearman correlation showed a strong positive correlation of fractures and deviations (s roh= 0.803, p < 0.001). The tagged visual analog scale could be a reliable instrument for the scoring of keel bone deviations. Our results support the assumption that the majority of highly deviated keels suffer from fractures as well. Further research is needed to investigate the correlation of palpation scores with the evaluation on radiographs.

Dataset Information

Automatic Assessment of Keel Bone Damage in Laying Hens at the Slaughter Line.

Publications

Automatic Assessment of Keel Bone Damage in Laying Hens at the Slaughter Line.

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