Multiskilling

Browsing the job ads this morning I came across this one "Driver MR/Chicken Catcher". The successful applicant will be an "experienced chicken catcher with MR licence required to drive crew truck and catch chickens at farms, 5 nights per week". What exactly does a chicken catcher do? According to an article in Brisbane's The Courier Mail last year, chicken catchers catch barn chickens which are then sent to the abattoir. It is a disappearing art and good chicken catchers are apparently hard to find; so much so that mechanical chicken catchers have been developed - first the chicken vacuum which was discontinued after protests from animal rights groups, and now another, which sweeps the chickens onto a metal ramp and whisks them along a conveyor belt to cages. Chicken catching happens at night and a good chicken catcher can apparently make up to $80,000 a year. Who knew?