Update:
The current "temporary" map, is now our new permanent map! This changed after hearing that Minecraft 1.9 might not be released for a long time :(
The spawn protection area on this new map is huge, this is to discourage people from dying, and to stop people building near spawn (which I did actually ask everyone not do to before..)
The old map got corrupted. I don't know how, why, if it's Mojangs or Herobrines fault, but it just won't work. If requested I will spend some time making the previous map available for download. I have also upped the number of backups kept for future maps to several days worth rather than just the last couple, in an attempt to stop things like this happening.
I have started a new map, which after some discussion, we have decided will be pure survival, just like the last one, with the same "don't steal", "don't build anything ugly", and "don't cheat" rules (which not enough people were following, but I've been polishing my ban-hammer so watch out). This new map will be replaced when Minecraft 1.9 comes out, which should be released sometime near the 18th. This is not an excuse to cheat or do anything stupid, but it could be a reason to not play on the server for a while if your a bit grumpy. Hopefully after 1.9 the map will not have to be changed for.. a long long time.
To prove that 1.9 is going to be worth updating the map for, here's a -slightly unrelated- dragon that Notch is making:
Apparently killing baby chickens is inhumane, so this device no longer works :(
That being said, some elements of the design can still probably be used to help make other chicken farming machines.
Are you one of those people, who has eggs, to make chickens, to make eggs, to make chickens?
Yes?! Well then, I have something for you, to help control the amount of eggs you have!
No?! Well, you might want to become one of those people after seeing what I've made!
The contraption I have designed takes eggs, and in return gives you feathers and COOKED chicken meat (or edible SMEPU conversion byproduct as Hans Lemurson would say.) Please don't call the RSPCA.
Sorry about the lack of commentary in the video, I might add it and/or do a "how to" at a later date.
Cooking Conversion
The idea of shooting eggs from a dispencer, into the block above a fire, came from AmazedStream and his video on the subject. Big thanks to him for realizing this. I tried many other ways of immolating chickens, but was unsuccessful creating anything vastly different and any better.
Why fire?
Thermal Conversion Fluid (i.e. lava), kills chickens nearly instantly, and destroys anything that is dropped. Even if you try to drop items through a very thin bit of lava and then into water, they are still destroyed. Fire on the other hand, has the ability to ignite chickens, without doing a huge amount of damage at once. Chickens also try to avoid fire when possible, so the two flaming sections in my design "funnel" the chickens down onto the trapdoor.
Escapees?
Unfortunately, my design is not 100% efficient. A small amount of chickens manage to avoid ignition. I have done a large amount of testing (over 2000 eggs), and I have come to the conclusion that around 2% of chickens escape their firey fate. I'm not sure what causes this mishap, or how to solve it. Personally I don't think it's too much of a big deal, as 2% is such a low amount, and it doesn't cause any malfunctions.
Dealing with escapees
I believe that this sort of animal to meat conversion (but with pigs), may have created Pigmen. Therefore, to avoid the rapid evolution of Zombie Chickenmen - which would undoubtly be far more hostile and cunning than Pigmen - all escapees must be euthanized with ruthless efficiency. There is an access door on the back of my design which allows this to manually take place. I considered adding some sort of lava chicken remover, but I think the design is complex enough already.
Test results
Each test used 576 (an inventory full) of eggs, which if the "1 out of 8 eggs becomes a chicken" theory is to be believed, should be about 72 chickens. All meat is cooked. These results are the same as the ones shown in the video. Run 1
Meat = 88
Feathers = 89
Escapees = 2 Run 2
Meat = 74
Feathers = 75
Escapees = 1 Run 3
Meat = 73
Feathers = 74
Escapees = 1 Run 4
Meat = 75
Feathers = 75
Escapees = 2 Totals
Eggs = 2304
Chickens* = 288
Meat = 310
Feathers = 313
Escapees = 6
Escapee%**= 1.94
*Predicted amount of chickens. Actual chicken count must be higher (310 at least) because each chicken can only drop 1 meat. This may be to do with the fact that -very- rarely, an egg can spawn 4 chickens.
** Escapee percent is based upon assuming 310 chickens appeared in the trap. Yes, the figure in the video is "wrong"; it uses the number or Predicted chickens rather than number of actual chickens.
Special thanks goes to Hans Lemurson and his thread about accumulating arrows.
