Imagining the Chicken Farm of the Future, Part 2: Automate Everything

Animal husbandry will be transformed by AI, just like everything else

Advances in artificial intelligence stand to profoundly transform our society in numerous ways, and animal husbandry itself is no exception. With new technological capabilities and massive economic growth, we’ll be positioned to genuinely transform animal welfare standards while also maintaining the food abundance that we’ve come to rely on.

This post is the second in a series where we set aside the economic and engineering constraints that drive husbandry today, and instead imagine what the most humane form of husbandry might look like in a future of immense abundance. If you haven’t read Part 1, I’d recommend starting there. Though this vision may still be far off, it's important to define what it could look like so that we can help steer things in the right direction.

Automated Husbandry

In Part 1, I described an integrated supply chain without live transportation, where chickens hatch, grow, and are slaughtered within a single high-tech facility. Flocks of chickens live in small, carefully constructed rooms, each doubling as a controlled-atmosphere stunning chamber. But the critical question remains: how can we systematically ensure humane treatment for each individual chicken throughout its life?

At the heart of humane poultry farming in the future will be comprehensive automation driven by artificial intelligence. Advanced AI technologies could automate nearly every aspect of husbandry, providing each chicken a level of individualized care currently impossible at scale.

Cameras could continually track every single individual in the room and assess their health in real time, immediately flagging any welfare concerns. Automated food and water dispensers could also deliver precisely optimized diets or administer targeted medications based on real-time biometrics.

AI-powered robotic caregivers would perform veterinary-level interventions, replicating, and eventually surpassing, the abilities of human farmers. Today, human involvement remains important because effective husbandry relies on craft and intuition developed through years of experience. Farmers who spend years caring for chickens become finely attuned to the subtle cues of their flock, recognizing specific movements or vocalizations that indicate a flock's needs.

Don’t take this too literally

However, recent advancements in AI have made it clear that husbandry could in theory be fully automated. Current LLMs can already outperform human doctors for human medical diagnostics, and frontier labs are rapidly advancing AI agents capable of the reasoning over time required to manage a flock from hatch to slaughter. And unlike human caregivers, AI systems won't be limited by the number of animals they can effectively monitor. Additionally, such monitoring could also flow into an independent welfare verification scheme.

Further, having humans physically onsite itself has a number of downsides. Even with stringent biosecurity protocols, human workers remain a primary vector for pathogens entering poultry barns. Human caregivers, despite their best intentions, can be susceptible to fatigue, inconsistency, and error—risks that are minimized with the consistent, precise performance of AI-driven robotic caregivers. Chickens are naturally stressed when they face unfamiliar stimuli like human handlers, but robotic caregivers would represent a constant, predictable presence to which chickens could readily adapt.

Ultimately, when husbandry can be completely automated, removing humans completely will have benefits to both animal welfare and economics.

However, some health issues may inevitably arise. When they do, having robots capable of humane euthanasia will be essential, especially if the health issue risks spreading to other birds. Advanced bioanalytics could proactively detect subtle indicators suggesting a bird is on a trajectory toward irreversible health decline, enabling euthanasia before the animal experiences significant discomfort or negative welfare. In these situations, an automated euthanasia robot could gently approach the affected chicken, calmly transfer it into a container with a nitrogen atmosphere for painless euthanasia. This capability is already within reach of current in-barn robotics companies.

While AI will drive most capabilities, increased societal wealth and technological progress will also facilitate crucial facility improvements. For example, powerful ventilation systems could maintain ammonia and particulate levels at comfortable, healthy thresholds. Far-UVC lighting would ensure each room remains free of pathogens, drastically reducing disease risks. Low stocking densities would give chickens ample space to move freely, eliminating stress from overcrowding. And thoughtfully designed environments—including regularly cleaned dirt floors for natural dust bathing, comfortable perches for resting, pecking substrates for satisfying foraging instincts, and sheltered areas to seek privacy and perform nesting behaviors—would allow chickens to express their full range of natural behaviors.

To evaluate whether this system delivers the kind of husbandry we’d feel proud to support, we can turn to the Five Freedoms framework—a widely respected model of animal welfare that captures the core conditions necessary for animals to live well.

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst: Food and water would always be plentiful, with chickens consistently healthy enough to access them.

2. Freedom from discomfort: The environment would be spacious, stable, and protected from adverse weather, predators, and pathogens.

3. Freedom from pain, injury, and disease: Health issues would be treated on an individual basis and any bird with irreversible health issues would be humanely euthanized before experiencing negative welfare.

4. Freedom to express normal behavior: Enriched, stimulating environments would enable natural social interactions and behaviors like dust bathing, foraging, and nesting.

5. Freedom from fear and distress: Without the unpredictable presence of human handlers or sudden environmental disruptions, chickens would rarely encounter frightening stimuli, significantly reducing stress and anxiety.

When every aspect of a chicken’s life is fully automated, each individual could experience a calm, stable, and responsive environment from the day it hatches. Over the course of its life, every need would be anticipated and met. Then, one day, it would fall asleep and simply not wake up.

Technology over pastoralism

This vision of humane husbandry runs counter to many contemporary trends in animal agriculture. Current welfare initiatives often emphasize pastoral ideals such as outdoor access, smaller flock sizes, and more direct human involvement in care decisions. But these are only proxies for the actual thing we care about—ensuring the best possible welfare for each individual animal. In the future, more technological approaches will allow us to directly provide better welfare more effectively and efficiently.

For example, outdoor access is valued because it gives chickens access to sunlight, fresh air, vegetation, and dirt for dust bathing. But thoughtfully engineered indoor environments with strong ventilation, windows, and enrichment can supply all these benefits without exposing birds to the risks of predation, harsh weather, or diseases carried by wild animals.

Innovative modern-day companies like Kipster already demonstrate how outdoor access is unnecessary for good welfare. Kipster's indoor egg farms provide some of the highest-quality living conditions in the industry, which they show off via livestreams viewable at any time. On their farms, sunlight streams in through ceiling windows, and chickens have access to enrichments through “indoor gardens.”¹

Kipster’s innovative egg farm in Indiana.

Even though “pasture-raised” eggs are commonly considered to be the highest welfare standard in the egg industry, Kipster doesn’t use this label because technically their chickens don’t have access to pasture. In fact, Kipster argues that traditional pasture systems can introduce stress, as chickens often fear exposure to predators outdoors.

The pastoral ideal for animal agriculture assumes that nature and natural environments inherently provide the best welfare. But for humans, it’s been our use of technology to move away from the state of nature that has enabled the greatest flourishing. Kipster has begun to demonstrate how this may be true for animals as well. As technology unlocks powerful new capabilities, and growing societal wealth makes them broadly affordable, we should actively embrace these advancements. Rather than clinging to outdated pastoral ideals, we should leverage human ingenuity to envision how we can offer animals better lives than what’s possible in nature.

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In the next post in this series, we’ll wrap up the poultry industry by going deeper into how we can raise chickens that aren’t used for meat, but eggs. This includes both layers and breeders (the parents of broilers or layers). Stay tuned!

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1. Kipster was also one of the first companies in the US to announce intentions to use in-ovo sexing, further showing their innovative streak.