{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,2]],"date-time":"2026-07-02T09:37:28Z","timestamp":1782985048497,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,16]],"date-time":"2025-03-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1742083200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation","award":["2023A1515110691"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2023A1515110691"]}]},{"name":"Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation","award":["ZQQZ-31"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZQQZ-31"]}]},{"name":"Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation","award":["2024B03J1353"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024B03J1353"]}]},{"name":"Project of State Key Laboratory of Swine and Poultry Breeding Industry","award":["2023A1515110691"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2023A1515110691"]}]},{"name":"Project of State Key Laboratory of Swine and Poultry Breeding Industry","award":["ZQQZ-31"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZQQZ-31"]}]},{"name":"Project of State Key Laboratory of Swine and Poultry Breeding Industry","award":["2024B03J1353"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024B03J1353"]}]},{"name":"Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning Project","award":["2023A1515110691"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2023A1515110691"]}]},{"name":"Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning Project","award":["ZQQZ-31"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZQQZ-31"]}]},{"name":"Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning Project","award":["2024B03J1353"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024B03J1353"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Animals"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Accurately counting chickens in densely packed cages is a major challenge in large-scale poultry farms. Traditional manual counting methods are labor-intensive, costly, and prone to errors due to worker fatigue. Furthermore, current deep learning models often struggle with accuracy in caged environments because they are not well-equipped to handle occlusions. In response, we propose the You Only Look Once-Chicken Counting Algorithm (YOLO-CCA). YOLO-CCA improves the YOLOv8-small model by integrating the CoordAttention mechanism and the Reversible Column Networks backbone. This enhancement improved the YOLOv8-small model\u2019s F1 score to 96.7% (+3%) and average precision50:95 to 80.6% (+2.8%). Additionally, we developed a threshold-based continuous frame inspection method that records the maximum number of chickens per cage with corresponding timestamps. The data are stored in a cloud database for reliable tracking during robotic inspections. The experiments were conducted in an actual poultry farming environment, involving 80 cages with a total of 493 chickens, and showed that YOLO-CCA raised the chicken recognition rate to 90.9% (+13.2%). When deployed on a Jetson AGX Orin industrial computer using TensorRT, the detection speed increased to 90.9 FPS (+57.6 FPS), although the recognition rate slightly decreased to 93.2% (\u22122.9%). In summary, YOLO-CCA reduces labor costs, improves counting efficiency, and supports intelligent poultry farming transformation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ani15060853","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,17]],"date-time":"2025-03-17T11:04:22Z","timestamp":1742209462000},"page":"853","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Enhanced Methodology and Experimental Research for Caged Chicken Counting Based on YOLOv8"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4062-6713","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhenlong","family":"Wu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"},{"name":"Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU LEUVEN), Kasteelpark Arenberg 30, 3001 Leuven, Belgium"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6743-0051","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jikang","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Livestock and Poultry Breeding, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hengyuan","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Livestock and Poultry Breeding, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9240-8756","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Cheng","family":"Fang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"},{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Livestock and Poultry Breeding, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"1","article-title":"Precision livestock farming: An international review of scientific and commercial aspects","volume":"5","author":"Banhazi","year":"2012","journal-title":"Int. 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