Evaluation of urinary creatinine excretion to estimate in vivo body composition of Belgian Blue double-muscled bulls

International audience ; Urinary creatinine excretion (UCE) and chemical body composition of 18 Belgian Blue double-muscled bulls were determined. Partly due to the large fasted live weight (fLW) range ($308-710$ kg), kg water and protein in the empty body were quite accurately predicted (adjR$^2$ = 0.94 and 0.97) by UCE. The precision of the prediction of kg empty body fat was less good (adjR$^2$ = 0.77). However, the empty body composition of the bulls varied only slightly and linearly with increasing live weight so that the fLW was the best parameter to estimate empty body water and protein... Mehr ...