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A chicken harvester is a machine used in poultry farming to gather chickens (typically broilers) for slaughter. ==Description and function== Since broilers are not kept in cages, some method is required to catch the chickens. The traditional hand method was to corral the birds, catch them, grab them by the feet, five per hand (typically), and then drop the animals into crates. This is a backbreaking job, said to be "the worst in the poultry industry".〔〔 The machine, by contrast, uses mechanical grabbers that deposit the chickens onto a conveyor belt which then moves them into a temporary holding area on the machine.〔 From there, the chickens are placed in holding crates or containers, to transfer them to subsequent processing. Chicken harvesters can harvest up to 200 chickens every 30 seconds, and around 8,000 per hour. Studies have demonstrated that the use of chicken harvesters may be less stressful to the birds compared to being hand-wrangled by humans.〔 The use of the machines has also been demonstrated to reduce injuries to chickens compared to those that occur from hand-wrangling,〔 especially in wings and legs. In addition, while the machine does not reduce the number of man hours required to process the animals, it is said to be easier on the workers.〔 A British study found that a mechanical catcher reduced some injuries by as much as 50%. Other studies indicated more modest improvements of 9.5% Paul S. Berry of the British Silsoe Research Institute is credited with the development of the machine, starting in the 1980s. The British government provided $200,000 a year to design the machine, with hopes of reducing livestock suffering. 〔 Earlier mechanical machines used a vacuum method.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chicken harvester」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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