Music helps raise quality chickens
Taiwan’s government has introduced methods developed in Australia and New Zealand to allow chickens to listen to music throughout the day, which is said to help locals raise top-quality chickens.
A chicken farmer in Yunlin County, Taiwan, was struggling with the high cost
of chicken feed. Earlier this year he received assistance from the government in
the form of music piped in to serenade the 40,000 chickens in their coops for
3-4 hours during feeding time.
The farmer stated that he noticed the
positive effect the music was having on the chickens in just a short period of
time. In the past, he said, it took over 90 days to grow a chicken to a weight
of 3 kg. The period shortened to 80 days after they introduced the music, which
means savings of over NT$100,000 in feed costs for each batch of chickens.
Additionally, the owner said that not only do both the cocks and hens
exhibit even temperaments, but the chickens even produce better meat. Moreover,
they are sold out when they hit the market. The birds also received
certification for the chickens’ being raised with music and sold without
pharmaceutical residues. Their popularity has even prompted Singaporean buyers
to request them.
The farmer said that on the trip he made to New Zealand
and Australia in 2007, he discovered that pigs and cows that had been treated to
music there were larger than those that weren’t. This is becoming so popular
that Universal Music Group was reportedly hired to put together a compilation of
tunes, and airing the music at the chicken farms here has been a complete
success.
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