What the chicken might look like with a virtual reality headset

Why did the chicken cross the road? He didn’t – he just thought he did.

Chickens could be about to get virtual reality headsets to make them feel free range – or at least they will if one professor gets his way.

Austin Stewart, an assistant professor at Iowa State University, has developed a project called Second Livestock, which is looking at developing Oculus Rift headsets for chickens in captivity.

Cock-ulus Rift: the chickens would experience a ‘free-range’ virtual reality (Picture: Austin Stewart)

Mr Stewart’s theory is that the Oculus Rift-style headgear would trick ordinary chickens on farms into believing they’re roaming limitless virtual land and therefore give them a free-range life.




He said the Second Livestock system could be used with other farm animals to artificially make their treatment more humane.

The technology is usually used in the gaming world where a head-mounted display, made by Oculus VR, allows anyone to experience a computer-simulated environment.

Mr Stewart hatched the plan with a dual-purpose in mind (Picture: Austin Stewart)

But Mr Stewart told the Ames Tribune that his project is as much a study on how technology impacts the lives of humans as it is an experiment to improve the quality of life for livestock.

‘I think we need to carefully evaluate whether this direction is a good direction to go for our species,’ he said.

‘It’s not so much that virtual reality is lacking humanity as it’s creating these really safe environments where we’re not actually exposed to anything harmful, which I don’t think would actually be really good for us.’

This is not the first time Mr Stewart has had unusual ideas. In the past, he has developed a shotgun that fires wildflower seeds and a robot that tends to the environment by randomly dropping compost and seeds. Sadly none have made it onto the mainstream market. So far…