Revolutionising poultry health

The University of Manchester’s Professor Timothy Cootes collaborated with world-leading poultry-breeding company, Aviagen, to develop a software tool that could identify signs of joint disease in the legs of broiler chickens from 3D X-RAY images.

Historically, poultry-breeding company Aviagen had been using 2D X-RAY devices to monitor and detect clinical and sub-clinical Tibial Dyschondroplasia (TD) in their broiler chickens. Modern 3D X-RAY technology offered opportunities to improve the accuracy of detecting clinical and sub-clinical TD as part of Aviagen’s efforts to breed for improved leg health.

Innovating a diagnostic tool

Professor of Informatics, Imaging and Data Sciences, Cootes set about creating a prototype of a software tool that could identify signs of joint disease from 3D X-RAY images. The prototype was tested and showed promising results – allowing Aviagen to identify birds exhibiting TD more simply, accurately and with higher throughput than the handheld 2D devices previously used. The system was officially adopted, and Aviagen is now monitoring more than 10,000 chickens a week across several of their sites.  

Expanding the collaboration

The success of this initial collaboration led to a series of further projects in which a range of different measurements related to the skeletal health of the birds was automatically calculated from the 3D X-RAY images.

Aviagen have since agreed to an ongoing consultancy with Professor Cootes and a software licensing deal with the University’s Innovation Factory. This allows them to use the technology on an exclusive basis and at a large scale across multiple sites.