Don't Press Your Cluck
It may ruffle your feathers, but your Ma and Pa Kettle image of farming is running smack-dab against the 21st Century.
According to the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, Tyson Foods and Georgia Poultry recently hosted an open house near Wartrace, Tennesee, for the high-tech chicken house of the future.
The structure houses 32,000 birds, is computer-controlled, and costs 200,000(although Jimmy Carter and volunteers from Habitat For Poultry claimed they could do the job a lot cheaper).
The chicken house contains eight independent heat zones. The computer can maintain the optimum temperature -- unless, of course, the computer’s wife gets cold.
The lighting is carefully controlled, with a dimmer to calm down the chickens. I hear they even pipe in songs such as “Dancing Beak To Beak” and “If I Had A Hammer, And, Oh, Yeah, Opposable Thumbs.”
If anything goes wrong in the chicken house, the computer sets off an alarm and phones the owner. Of course with all the glitches computer owners are accustomed to, the message may turn out to be “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
The owner can monitor the computer from anywhere in the world via the Internet. That means three batches of chickens will have matured before he slogs through all the “spam” e-mail for vinyl siding, “work at home” schemes, and male enhancement products.
I have it on good authority that the computer is loaded with the beta version of Microsoft’s revolutionary Chicken Little software. Any breech in the structural integrity of the roof will be met with cries of “The sky is falling!”
Of course predators are still a worry, but at least now the proverbial “fox in the hen house” has to go to the expense of hiring a hacker.
The greatest concern of owners is that the restaurant-bound chickens will somehow catch wise and gain access to the computer. Browsing the Web, they might encounter “the F word” (“fried”), or be disillusioned by job search sites. (“My guidance counselor told me I should have gone into the egg production side of the business.”)
Some birds might stumble across forbidden information that changes their whole life. (“Son of a gun! The sun would come up even if I didn’t crow! I’m gonna start sleeping in.”)
The new chicken house allows chickens to grow more comfortably. Partly, that’s because Tyson wants to placate People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals and partly because the “Disgruntled thighs from disgruntled chickens” ad campaign flopped with focus groups.
The high-tech features enhance the mission of having chickens ready for the processing plant by the time they’re a mere 51 days old. Mature at 51 days! Some husbands can’t manage that in 51 years. At this rate, soon someone will say, “Look, a gleam in that rooster’s eye! Let’s eat the gleam!”
Some may quibble with the feeding program that produces the chickens, but I think they’re Nervous Nellies. I don’t see any ill effects of consuming the accelerated poultry. In fact, it will enhance our language, with phrases such as “Which came first – the chicken or the eight-year-old going through puberty?”
I think we’re in for true progress with childrearing. (“Yes, she started walking when she was nine months old. Okay, maybe she falls down because she’s a 38D, but…”)
Originally published the week of Sept. 19, 2004.
According to the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, Tyson Foods and Georgia Poultry recently hosted an open house near Wartrace, Tennesee, for the high-tech chicken house of the future.
The structure houses 32,000 birds, is computer-controlled, and costs 200,000(although Jimmy Carter and volunteers from Habitat For Poultry claimed they could do the job a lot cheaper).
The chicken house contains eight independent heat zones. The computer can maintain the optimum temperature -- unless, of course, the computer’s wife gets cold.
The lighting is carefully controlled, with a dimmer to calm down the chickens. I hear they even pipe in songs such as “Dancing Beak To Beak” and “If I Had A Hammer, And, Oh, Yeah, Opposable Thumbs.”
If anything goes wrong in the chicken house, the computer sets off an alarm and phones the owner. Of course with all the glitches computer owners are accustomed to, the message may turn out to be “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
The owner can monitor the computer from anywhere in the world via the Internet. That means three batches of chickens will have matured before he slogs through all the “spam” e-mail for vinyl siding, “work at home” schemes, and male enhancement products.
I have it on good authority that the computer is loaded with the beta version of Microsoft’s revolutionary Chicken Little software. Any breech in the structural integrity of the roof will be met with cries of “The sky is falling!”
Of course predators are still a worry, but at least now the proverbial “fox in the hen house” has to go to the expense of hiring a hacker.
The greatest concern of owners is that the restaurant-bound chickens will somehow catch wise and gain access to the computer. Browsing the Web, they might encounter “the F word” (“fried”), or be disillusioned by job search sites. (“My guidance counselor told me I should have gone into the egg production side of the business.”)
Some birds might stumble across forbidden information that changes their whole life. (“Son of a gun! The sun would come up even if I didn’t crow! I’m gonna start sleeping in.”)
The new chicken house allows chickens to grow more comfortably. Partly, that’s because Tyson wants to placate People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals and partly because the “Disgruntled thighs from disgruntled chickens” ad campaign flopped with focus groups.
The high-tech features enhance the mission of having chickens ready for the processing plant by the time they’re a mere 51 days old. Mature at 51 days! Some husbands can’t manage that in 51 years. At this rate, soon someone will say, “Look, a gleam in that rooster’s eye! Let’s eat the gleam!”
Some may quibble with the feeding program that produces the chickens, but I think they’re Nervous Nellies. I don’t see any ill effects of consuming the accelerated poultry. In fact, it will enhance our language, with phrases such as “Which came first – the chicken or the eight-year-old going through puberty?”
I think we’re in for true progress with childrearing. (“Yes, she started walking when she was nine months old. Okay, maybe she falls down because she’s a 38D, but…”)
Originally published the week of Sept. 19, 2004.
posted by Danny Tyree at 7:31 PM
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