The Matrix Chicken Farm

By Alex in Animals & Pets, Food & Drink on Feb 16, 2012 at 11:17 am

Love chicken (after all, they're quite yummy) but are disturbed by the cruelty in the way the farm-industrial complex raises hundreds of millions of broiler chickens every year?

Architecture student André Ford has got the solution. All you have to do is convince the chicken to take the red pill:

Ford [...] proposes a "Headless Chicken Solution". This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken to inhibit its sensory perceptions so that it could be produced in more densely-packed conditions without the associated distress. The brain stem for the chicken would be kept intact so that the homeostatic functions continue to operate, allowing it to grow.

Ford proposes this solution for two reasons: to meet the rising demand for meat, particularly poultry, and to improve the welfare of the chickens by desensitising them to the unpleasant reality of their existence.

After this "desensitisation", the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to each large vertical frames -- a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be removed in order to pack more in. There could be dozens of these frames in the vertical farming system, which Ford refers to as the Centre for Unconscious Farming. Food, water and air would be delivered via a network of tubes and excrement would be removed in the same way. This technique could achieve a density of around 11.7 chickens per cubic metre instead of the current 3.2 chickens achieved in broiler houses.

Olivia Solon of Wired UK has the story: Link


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  1. MJ Druitt
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 11:30 am

    If they succeed, imagine when they apply this technology to humans!

  2. That guy
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 11:52 am

    Beware, what if they develop an Overmind?

  3. dev
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    I… just… yeah.

    I think people are going to be more disturbed by brainless zombie chickens on their plate than densely packed normal chickens. Not to mention the complete lack of muscle development this will cause is going to create a different product.

    I’d rather see more development on growing muscles from scratch as meat than this.

  4. Cory
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    “These conditions are horrifying! I would all right with this, if only someone would behead the still-living chickens first.”

  5. LisaL
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    Yeah… something about brainless chickens is more disturbing than what’s happening now.
    Plus this sounds REALLY expensive and would probably jack up the prices of meat.

  6. EIT
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    Did anybody else have horrible HL2 flashbacks just now?

  7. w3r5a346s57ybsxytb
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 12:12 pm

    Can’t wait to see PETA’s reaction on this

  8. Nick Gisburne
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    Try selling this one to the voters and see how it works out for you.

  9. spurge
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 5:30 pm

    It would actually be the BLUE PILL – the RED PILL took you out of ‘the matrix’ and in to the “real world”

  10. Funkycpaman
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 6:23 pm

    He’s kidding, right?

  11. hmm...
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 6:24 pm

    >> “I think people are going to be more disturbed by brainless zombie chickens on their plate than densely packed normal chickens.”

    Nope. People have no clue where food comes from or in what horrible conditions the animals are bred.

    Btw: they are growing meat in petri dishes today; zombie chickens are small potatoes compared to that.

  12. Bearfoot
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 6:40 pm

    @corey>> Instead of afterwards?

  13. Diane
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    It’s just like the chickienobs from Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx & Crake:


    “This is the latest,” said Crake.
    What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.

    “What the hell is it?” said Jimmy.

    “Those are chickens,” said Crake. “Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They’ve got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.

    “But there aren’t any heads…”

    “That’s the head in the middle,” said the woman. “There’s a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don’t need those.”

  14. Sandi Craws
    Feb 16th, 2012 at 8:41 pm

    Seems like this guy is missing the point entirely.

  15. JChief00
    Feb 17th, 2012 at 7:21 am

    Anyone who spent 20 seconds in a chicken house would not find vat meat nearly as disgusting.

  16. TimO
    Feb 17th, 2012 at 8:10 am

    So you’re going to do brain surgery and provide life support for a $4 chicken? Yeah, I don’t think so….

    Gotta laugh when these city boys come up with ideas.

  17. randi
    Feb 17th, 2012 at 8:21 am

    thats just as f***ing sick as factory farming.

  18. giantflea
    Feb 17th, 2012 at 10:55 am

    This is a f***ed up idea.

  19. Kev
    Feb 17th, 2012 at 11:40 am

    First, I am not a member of PETA and I do eat meat. I am not the typical person who protests how animals are treated, although I am somewhat troubled by it. Second, this is horrifying.

  20. That Guy
    Feb 18th, 2012 at 10:39 am

    I’m for it, as long as the muscle problem is solved. And as far as growing muscle in a dish, yes there is myoblast which could mean growing a full chicken breast or steak from nothing. But I worry about that for one reason. The marbling.

  21. vegangsterARNP
    Mar 2nd, 2012 at 7:24 pm

    You think this is neat? You are bloody disturbed. if you all would just learn what vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fruit were, you wouldn’t NEED this disgusting filth. But I understand; you are all too lazy to learn about what your body really needs to thrive. You prefer to think twisted animal technology is “so cool!” because you have crap for brains. You all deserve a week or two in a slaughterhouse. I hope you make it out alive.


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