Abstract

Longitudinal bone growth is essential to support rapid body growth in commercial broiler chickens. The present study aimed to determine which simple mathematic model is best suitable for explaining the absolute and the relative bone growth in length (expressed as a ratio of bone length to body weight) as a function of age in male and female commercial broiler chickens over the first 35 days of age. A total of 1,800 broiler chickens (900 males and 900 females) of Cobb 500, Ross 308, and Arbor Acres raised in standard commercial broiler houses were randomly selected for this study. Body weight and the lengths of backbones, third toe, shank bone, and keel bone were individually measured in all chickens at 1, 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 days of age. Regression analysis (with 4 simple mathematical models including linear, logarithmic, inverse, and exponential) was used to find a suitable model for estimating the absolute and the relative bone growth in length. In addition, an adjusted R2 was used to assess the model fitting. The results indicated that the absolute bone growth in length linearly increased with age. The adjusted R2 values for the linear model were 0.973, 0.937, 0.950, and 0.974 for the lengths of the backbones, third toe, shank bone, and keel bone, respectively. However, the relative bone growth in length logarithmically decreased with age. The adjusted R2 values of the logarithmic model were 0.971, 0.952, 0.957, and 0.905 for the relative length of the backbones, third toe, shank bone, and keel bone, respectively.The present investigation suggests thata linear model is a suitable model for estimating the absolute bone growth in length, but a logarithmic model is a proper model for estimating the relative bone growth in length of commercial broiler chickens.