Automated Estimation of Loin Muscle Mass in Living Rabbits Using Computed Tomography

Abstract

The objective of this study was to present the updated segmentation technique predicting the loin muscle weight of rabbits based on in vivo computed tomography measurements. The segmented muscle volumes are used to estimate the weight of the loin muscle and the predicted weights are compared to the real weights of meat cuts measured after the dissection of the animals. The R2 value of the proposed technique is 0.74 which is significantly better than the determination coefficients than that of the of the previously used method (R2 0.49). The proposed technique is suitable to be involved in the breeding selection program of rabbits (Pannon White) at Kaposvár University, Hungary.

Keywords

• computed tomography
• automated segmentation
• loin muscle
• rabbit