Recently updated on December 27th, 2019 at 05:09 pm
What?? A VR system for animals too? That sounds a little bit crazy. Well, an assistant professor from College of Design of Iowa State University (ISU), Austin Stewart, might have a way to make it happens. His latest project called Second Livestock is conceptually designed to fool the chickens by making the chicken believe that they are on a large and open field. In this project, Stewart’s main objective and goal is to treat the farm animals as humane as possible while they are breed in cages, barns or facilities where the space is too small for them to wander around. This can help to minimize their stress or depression level and thus making them more healthy and produce better quality of eggs and meat.
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| Photo illustration of how Farm Animals such as Chickens use VR. (Image courtesy of Austin Stewart) |
In order to do that, the chickens need to wear a lightweight VR headset that can display the 3D world called Virtual Free Range. There is also microphone so they can “communicate” with other chickens as well. In the virtual environment, the chickens can roam freely, socialize with other chickens and “eat” virtual foods where the real foods are placed on the real trays.
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| The Chickens’ VR Experience in Virtual Free Range. |
In the small cages, the chickens will walk on a special ball that acts like an omnidirectional treadmill that can simulate the feeling of moving around.
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| Chickens walks on Special Ball like Omnidirectional Treadmill. |
Okay, this really sounds to me like the combination of “The Matrix” movie and the “Animal Farm” story book. However, this project might not be realistic to commercialize since the cost required is around $40,000 to $50,000 per chicken. That is totally outrageous and damn expensive at this moment.
Since the systems is too pricey, perhaps it can be of good use to the exotic and endangered animals species in zoo or captivity. This solution might be able to prolong or extend their life in captivity. But the question is what is the impact or side effects to the animals? Can the solution significantly reduce their depression or stress level? Can it make them more healthy physically, mentally and emotionally? Well, perhaps more work and experiment need to be done to understand it further.
For more info, you can read it at:
1) The Official Second Livestock Website.
2) “ISU design professor envisions virtual reality lives for farm animals” from Ames Tribune.
3) “The VIRTUALLY free-range chickens: Researchers develop technology to fool battery birds into thinking they are roaming free in a field” from Daily Mail.
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