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Biomechanical testing of tensile strength of hoof horn in fattening bulls fed different concentrations of crude protein
Sara-Lisa Lennermann
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Introduction
Hoof health in cattle is an essential prerequisite not only for animal welfare, but also in terms of economic success of the farm. However, bovine hoof diseases are amongst the most important problems of today’s farming. The economic success depends amongst others on the cost of feeding, which again is related to the feed composition. In order to feed fattening bulls as cheaply as possible, feed rations were experimentally supplemented with varying proportions of crude protein (cp: 9%, 11%, 13%, 15%, 17%). After slaughter at the end of the fattening period the bulls’ hooves were examined. It was the objective to develop a method of testing hoof horn in a reproducible way. This testing procedure was applied in order to determine the horn quality of different groups of bulls fed different concentrations of crude protein in order to detect the “cheapest” ration yielding the best horn quality. Therefore, tensile testing was applied to pieces of hoof horn to determine the horn properties.
Materials and Methods
The feet of the fore and hind limbs of 39 fattening bulls were examined. They were divided into five groups according to the different proportions of crude protein in the ration (9%, 11%, 13%, 15%, 17%). Apart from the crude protein the ration was identical with an energy content of 11.5 MJ ME/kg dry weight. In each case the hooves of a foreleg and a hind leg, chosen randomly from either side of the body, were used. A proximal and a distal sample was taken from the abaxial wall of the lateral and medial claw of each limb, producing 312 samples to be tested (Figure 1). As some of the testing samples were damaged, only 304 pieces could be examined in the end. A template was used to saw the samples out of the hoof at the correct place. The location of where the samples were taken from was chosen due to an earlier study showing the greatest tensile stability of the dermo-epidermal junction to be in the dorso-abaxial region of the wall (Maierl et al., 2002; Widauer, 2006). Therefore, the selected sampling location was an area where the hoof capsule endured a high long-term weight load. Various machines were used, such as a planer, rotary cutter, grinding machine and a moulding cutter. The samples showed only slight differences in thickness and were free of grooves, which was important to assure equal conditions for analysis. The tensile test was performed by a universal testing machine (Figure 2; Figure 3). The test pieces were loaded to failure. All dimensions of the single test pieces were documented in an excelsheet in order to calculate the cross-sectional area from width and thickness of the reduced section of the test piece. Thus, the strain could be calculated in N/mm2 (MPa). For statistical evaluation, the tensile strength of the samples from group 1 (9% cp) were compared to all other groups due to the fact that groups 2–5 (cp 11%-17%) showed similar results. […]
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About
Affiliation of the authors at the time of publication
Veterinary Sciences, Veterinary Faculty, University of Munich
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