A young student from Barton, N.S. has hatched a plan to make chickens produce larger, denser eggs, and the answer is music to the ears of farmers.
Thian Carman, 15, is the youngest certified farm owner in Nova Scotia. When he’s not at school, he is tending to his chickens.
Carman says he knows chickens and he knows what they like, including their musical taste.
“The music is calm and relaxes them and puts them in a good environment to lay bigger eggs,” he says.
A fellow farmer told Carman that cattle produce more milk when they are exposed to classical music, so he decided to try it out on his chickens. He confirmed they do, in fact, prefer Mozart.
“The eggs, they actually increased in size and they increased in mass by about ten per cent or so, was quite a difference,” he says.
Carman also played country music for the chickens, but he says the results weren’t as positive.
“The eggs, they actually shrunk in size.”
Intrigued by the findings, he decided to turn them into his Grade 9 science fair project.
Carman's project earned him a first-place finish in a science fair in the Tri-County region and he is taking his finding on the road to compete at a national science fair in Windsor, Ont.
In addition to taking home top prize from the science fair, Carman’s project has earned him another win - his customers are happy with the new and improved product.
“A lot of them appreciate that, getting bigger eggs. So you know, keep my customers around.”
Carman’s next experiment will examine how chickens respond to heavy metal music, but for now, Mozart will continue to rule his coop.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Alyse Hand
