This may look a bit like a potato harvester, but it’s actually the Easyload chicken catcher from Norfolk company Anglia Autoflow.

Getting poultry out of a shed normally involves manually carrying the birds by a their legs – a stressful job for both men and chickens. But the Easyload moves slowly around the shed in low light conditions, picking up 200 birds in about 30 seconds, equivalent to 8000 birds an hour.

The key thing is that there is no direct contact between men and birds. Once the machine is full, it places the birds gently on a hopper and returns to the shed to pick up another load. The result is 38% less leg damage and 11% less wing damage, says the company.

NKAS Catching, at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, is the first firm to buy one. It’s not the first time there’s been an automated chicked catcher; the NIAE had a design in the 1980s.