Farmers adapt NASA’s Mars rover to raise chickens

BREEDING chickens on a large scale isn’t rocket science. It is much harder. The birds are bad at regulating their body temperature, and the big sheds they are kept in can get stuffy. Flickering lights and loud noises make them anxious. And ammonia from the faeces of birds crammed tightly together often produces unedifying “hock burns”. All of which means they require constant monitoring to ensure they are gaining weight. But babysitting chickens is time-consuming. A single worker can hope to weigh only a small sample by hand each week. Remotely monitored scales can help but, even when wheeled back and forth on pulleys, they suffer from blind spots.