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Keel bone differences in laying hens housed in enriched colony cages

ABSTRACT Keel bone damage may be painful to birds and affect their production. In order to better understand the frequency, position, and timepoint of keel bone damage that occur during production, the integrity of W‐36 laying hen keel bones housed in enriched colony cages at 748.4 cm2 (116 in2) was evaluated. At four time points, 120 birds (10 per cage; three cages per each of four rooms) had keel bones evaluated. Each hen was placed in a motion limiting restraint, scanned using computed tomography (CT), fitted in vests containing tri‐axial accelerometers, and placed back in their cages for 21 d. After 21 d, the hens were rescanned and returned to their cages. This process was repeated after 133 d. The CT scans were imported into Mimics analysis software (Materialise, Plymouth, MI, USA); 3D models were made of each keel bone at each time point and exported to 3‐matic analysis software (Materialise, Plymouth, MI, USA). Each laying hen's keel bone model was superimposed onto scans from multiple time points resulting in four bone pairings representative of each 21‐d period, the 133‐d period, and the entire duration of the project. Next, the proximal portion of each bone pairing was edited to normalize bone shape according to a strict protocol. Additionally, each pairing was divided into three portions: distal aspect (3 cm), proximal aspect (2 cm), and middle portion (remaining). Whole bone pairing and each bone portion was analyzed using the Part Comparison tool in 3‐matic. Raw data were compiled into three datasets and analyzed in SAS 9.3 using the GLIMMIX procedure using a three‐level random intercept model. The model controlled for time, part, part(time), and system with random intercepts of bird(cage) and cage. Overall, results revealed that the greatest morphological changes occurred during the first 21‐d period with regards to time (P = 0.03) and in the distal aspect of the keel with regards to part (P < 0.0001).