Detecting wing fractures in chickens using deep learning, photographs and computed tomography scanning

Animal welfare monitoring is a key part of veterinary surveillance in every poultry slaughterhouse. Among the animal welfare indicators routinely inspected, the prevalence of wing fractures and soft tissues injuries (e.g. bruises) is particularly relevant, because it is related to acute pain and suffering in injured birds. According to current practice, assessment corresponds to visual examination by animal welfare officers. However, taking into consideration the speed of the production line and limitations associated with human inspection (e.g. different visual perception, subjectivism and fatigue), new more objective and automated techniques are desirable. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the applicability of three deep learning classification models to detect fractures and/or bruises based on computed tomography (CT) scans and photographs of the wings. Namely, 1. Model_CT (two categories: 1.BROKEN and 2.NON_BROKEN) detecting fractures based on CT scans, 2.Model_Photo_Fractures (1.FRACTURES and 2.NO_FRACTURES) detecting fractures based on photographs and 3.Model_Photo_Bruises (1.BRUISES and 2.NO_BRUISES) detecting bruises based on photographs. To train, validate and test these models 306 CT scans and 285 photographs were collected. The 3D ResNet34 and 2D EfficientNetV2_s architectures were used for the CT and Photo_Models, respectively. The models reached an accuracy of 98 % (Model_CT), 96 % (Model_Photo_Fractures) and 82 % (Model_Photo_Bruises). All in all, applying deep learning to the combination of CT scanning and photography can help to objectively recognize wing fractures and bruises. Consequently, it might lead to more accurate and objective animal welfare monitoring and ultimately to raised animal welfare standards.