Insights into bone health to aid poultry welfare

Fresh insight into bone health in egg-laying chickens could support their health and welfare, by offering a simple way to assess risk and damage to their vulnerable breastbones, also known as sternum or keel bone.

Scientists from the Roslin Institute working with colleagues from Lohmann Breeders have shown that conventional measures of strength in chicken bones, such as their tibia, are a suitable way to determine the likelihood of damage to their keel bones.

The findings could also help monitor the health of keel bones, which are vulnerable to fractures in free-range poultry, but are difficult to examine.

The team also identified a key aspect of the keel bone shape associated with risk of fractures and damage, which could help enable simple assessments of bone health. 

Their insights could help inform breeding management to limit bone injury in chickens.

Strength guidance

The team sought to identify a way to easily measure keel bone damage or skeletal bone strength in living hens, to support breeding selection of birds that are more resilient to injury.

Their investigations showed that bone damage in the keel bone was broadly equivalent to the quality of other bones in the skeleton. 

Their outcome indicates that bones such as the tibia or humerus may be used as a guide to breastbone strength. As these are relatively easy to access in live birds, they may be used to assess bone health more easily than inspecting the keel directly.

Researchers also identified a tell-tale shape in the keel bone which is linked to a higher incidence of damage, in a finding that may further inform breeding selection.

The outcomes can be combined with recent work of Roslin scientists, in which they developed a digital X-ray procedure for assessing bone density by imaging the legs of hens.    

Their study, published in British Poultry Science, was supported by the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.

“Our results show that if you improve bone quality in birds in general, you improve the chances that the bird’s keel bone will not be damaged – and our team has already developed a useful method to measure leg bone quality in living hens.

“In addition, our work shows that at least one aspect of the keel shape is associated with damage, which could be used as a way of simply measuring damage. Overall, these insights will support reduced bone damage through informed breeding management of poultry.”

Professor Ian Dunn, Roslin Institute

** The Roslin Institute receives strategic investment funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and it is part of the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. **

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