American poultry producer Pasturebird has invented a solar-powered robot chicken coop on wheels, which it said fosters regenerative farming while allowing the animals to “live their best life”.
Pasturebird’s Automated Range Coop (ARC) is a large, floorless barn that each day rolls itself a short distance to allow the chickens within to graze on fresh pasture.
The company said it developed the design with assistance from NASA rocket scientists and investment from Perdue Farms, one of the biggest agriculture businesses in the US, which purchased Pasturebird in 2019.
According to Pasturebird, most farms have 80-bird coops and it takes about 15 minutes per coop to feed and move them. By contrast, its 700 square metre robot coop contains 6,000 chickens that it moves to fresh pasture in five minutes, at the push of a button.
Pasturebird calls this “a major, much-needed disruption in animal agriculture” that “has completely changed how chickens can – and should – be raised”.