Evaluation of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to determine the in vivo body composition of broilers

摘要

A number of experiments was conducted to optimize the use of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry for measuring the in vivo body composition of chickens and to validate these measurements by means of a chemical carcass analysis. The results indicated thatan accurate estimation of the body composition of broilers is possible for the parameters fat tissue mass, lean tissue mass and water mass when the animals are scanned in dorsal position on 4 mm polystyrene as AM and in 'detail slow' scan mode. There was a close agreement between predicted body composition based on estimating linear equations and the chemical carcass composition for body weight, lean and fat tissue mass.