Research Trends on Cage-Free Housing System in Laying Hens: A Bibliometric Analysis

The shift towards cage-free production systems in laying hens has gained significant attention in animal production research, particularly after the ban on conventional cages. Meanwhile, a bibliometric analysis entails the use of statistical methods to discover patterns and trends in scientific publications. This approach includes studying the quantity of publications, identifying the countries with the highest productivity, and defining the main fields of research. Through this analysis, we could gain valuable understanding of the dynamics and limitations in knowledge within the field. In this case, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on the cage-free housing system in laying hens using the database Scopus and the R package Bibliometrix. Based on the findings, a total of 900 were collected, which included 799 research articles, 48 conference papers, and 54 review papers. These publications spanned from 1960 to 2023, showcasing a notable 7.14 annual growth in the number of published works. The United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the USA and Brazil emerged as the most productive countries. Several publications have been released in various scientific journals, including Poultry Science (133 articles), Applied Animal Behaviour Science (61 articles), British Poultry Science (58 articles), Animals (57 articles), and Journal of Applied Poultry Science (25 articles). Moreover, in the past three years, the keywords were deep learning, housing condition, and anthelmintic agent. These results are expected to provide valuable insights for further investigation in this field. © 2024 by the authors. Licensee ResearchersLinks Ltd, England, UK.