Reminds me why I rarely eat chicken anymore. The even sadded thing is that this contraption is probably less stressful for the chicken than catching them by hand. And it probably saves a few hundred unocumented workers from asthma.

By the way, halal or kosher chicken is usually not raised this way and usually not much more expensive at a mom and pop store than the mass produced ones at WalMart/Kroger/Safeway...

Free range chicken, I've noticed, is actually noticeably tastier than the robot-grown stuff.

Run, chicken, run!

Holy Hell. I think I've just been converted. That is truly ... disturbing.

Heh, at our place food still has taste :D. But still I wonder for how long (our neighbours have a chicken farm and catch them by hand at night). Quite a difficult task.

So it's now easier to exploit animals with the intent of fattenning big business's wallet and the populace's waistline? Only when we have animal liberation will we have human freedom.

"Hydraulic powered fans on large capacity radiator and hydraulic cooler (timer reverses fan direction to remove feathers)."

I have never been a fan of eating chicken, but now i tell everyone i know about this...completely disturbed.

a lot of poultry companies have actually stopped using technologies similar to this. PETA and other groups are all over chicken companies for these vacuums-- these things break legs and bones, and are pretty rough. then again, the guys charged with rounding up chickens the manual way gets pecked, scratched and pooped on all day. in some ways i'd rather the chickens suffer than some poor guy or girl making $5 an hour.

I've actually harvested chickens... for one memorable night, long ago, on a kibbutz in Israel. You can't imagine how awful it is... running around in the dark in ankle deep chicken shit (which seems, in that context, not trivial at all) trying to grab the terrified birds, holding them upside down in one hand while you try to grab more with your other... I did it for one night, as a volunteer, and remember it vividly more than twenty years on. Can't imagine what it's like to do it for a living.

So I agree with the posters above... given what it's replacing, this is probably an improvement for all concerned. Even the chickens.

What's a kibbutz? But yeah, wow, that machine is so far outside my scope of experience I'm not sure what to make of it. Are we sure its not a hoax?

Yeah, it does seem cruel. But thats just because its efficient. It seems that anytime humans find a more efficient way of doing something that might involve nature, we are quick to label it as something horrendous or insensitive. A previous post said that its probably less strenous on the bird than chasing and catching by hand, I'm kind of prone to believe that. As it appears, the animal is being tossed around for what looks like 4-7 seconds, tops. It is grabbed, slid and deposited really quickly. Any damage would be superficial, maybe a couple of lost feathers.
Look at the video again. And again. The birds are put through not more much stress than a jump off a one story building would give them (remember, chickens can't fly, they glide and land quite awkwardly)
I don't know about you, but a bird like a chicken is extremely hardy. They're not as delicate as you think. They're birds: Hollow bones, light musculature, great resilience to dropping, and extreme cognitive control. Just a thought.
Lets all be just a little more objective.

Am I just blind? Where is the video? Did they take it down?

Apparently, they took the video down!

I am very impressed by the conversation here. I don't think I've ever had a debate on chicken-handling ethics before.

Just to nit pick on some of Animal Meat Lover's comments: Chickens can fly quite well (they can certainly fly a lot better than you or I can), although battery chickens aren't obviously very good at it because they don't get the practice. And they're actually not very "hardy" at all, even small nicks to their skin tend to keep on tearing open. You know how cooked chicken skin can just fall off the meat? - it also does that when they're alive.

I can see the justification for this invention from a human (worker's) health perspective, but I can't imagine its much fun for the chicken. But then no part of the rearing/catching/eating process is fun for the chicken anyway, is it?

Like I said: "It seems that anytime humans find a more efficient way of doing something that might involve nature, we are quick to label it as something horrendous or insensitive." In response to JB comments, to see the justification of the harvester and in the same sentence, attempt to imagine how "much fun" it is for the chicken, makes my point. Like almost all animals, a chicken spends its time doing what is most natural: eating, sleeping and reproducing. That would make _anything_ outside of those norms something that the chicken does not take to naturally, and therefore "unfun". So in answer JB's last question: No, there is no part of the rearing/catching/eating process that is fun for the chicken.

Please, to properly respond to the animal world and its needs, we have to stop placing human ideals, feelings and emotions over them. A fundamental flaw in animal right's movements is the misplacement of emotion. Far too often, humans try to think and feel for the animal. This often leads to impassioned cries about whether or not we should slaughter cattle, wear fur, or hunt whales, but these are not the subject. In this case, its harvesting chickens. My previous post said that the chickens do not appear to be handled cruelly. And to that end, it seems a machine like the harvester rounds them up as quickly as possible without injury, making it an extremely humane creation.

P.S. Anyone happen to grab the video? Can you post it somewhere?