Table 3.

Effects of rearing cage type and dietary limestone particle size on femur and tibia attributes in Lohmann LSL-lite hens.

Item	Age, wk	Cage1		SEM	LPS2			SEM	P-value
		CON	FUR		F	FM	M		Cage	LPS	Cage x LPS
Mineral density, g/cm2
Femur	24	0.156	0.159	0.008	0.148	0.146	0.178	0.010	0.764	0.079	0.978
	40	0.171	0.222	0.020	0.222	0.182	0.185	0.025	0.093	0.467	0.527
Tibia	24	0.170	0.170	0.007	0.165	0.163	0.181	0.009	0.995	0.315	0.993
	40	0.184	0.220	0.001	0.225	0.188	0.193	0.017	0.081	0.290	0.367
Mineral content, g
Femur	24	0.853	0.876	0.056	0.78	0.820	0.995	0.069	0.770	0.088	0.988
	40	0.953	1.320	0.148	1.35	1.025	1.035	0.181	0.090	0.369	0.355
Tibia	24	1.190	1.176	0.069	1.11	1.140	1.300	0.085	0.890	0.261	0.824
	40	1.283	1.626	0.126	1.67	1.345	1.350	0.154	0.070	0.255	0.341
Bone breaking strength, N
Femur	24	174.5	186.0	9.230	171.7	177.0	191.9	11.30	0.387	0.436	0.582
	40	152.4	203.0	17.95	190.1	183.7	159.2	21.99	0.058	0.584	0.300
Tibia	24	202.2	225.3	10.86	195.1	215.6	230.4	13.30	0.145	0.190	0.861
	40	198.7b	236.8a	12.50	217.1	226.2	209.9	15.32	0.041	0.754	0.676
Bone ash, %
Femur	24	46.3	46.6	0.850	46.2	45.5	47.7	1.050	0.857	0.344	0.156
	40	49.6	51.2	1.000	52.3	48.7	50.2	1.230	0.247	0.330	0.801
Tibia	24	44.8	44.3	0.450	45.3	43.7	44.8	0.560	0.436	0.146	0.501
	40	50.1	49.1	1.290	53.2a	47.7b	47.8b	1.580	0.594	0.035	0.158

¹CON, conventional cage 76 cm × 71 cm × 46 cm; FUR, furnished cage 239 cm × 80 cm × 75 cm outfitted with platforms and terraces to increases opportunities for load bearing exercises (e.g. jumping, perching, flying) (Casey-Trott et al., 2017a; Habinski et al., 2017).

²LPS, limestone particle size; F, fine, <0.595 mm, F; medium, 0.595 to <1.68 mm, M; and 1:1 mixture of F and M wt/wt; FM. (n = 5).