If this futuristic farmer has his way, chickens will never need to fly the coop.

An assistant professor at Iowa State University is using an Oculus Rift headset to design a free-range, virtual-reality world for factory-farmed chickens, tricking them into thinking they are no longer stuck in tiny cages.

Austin Stewart calls “The Matrix”-like poultry project Second Livestock, riffing off the once-popular online game Second Life, according to Modern Farmer.

It’s safe to say this is one application that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg never envisioned when he agreed to pay $2 billion for Oculus VR, the maker of the virtual-reality goggles.

Stewart, who has been working on the project since 2012, admits the idea sounds far-out and that he’s unsure whether it can even be tested on chickens without harming them, the trade publication reported.

But he thinks the idea will at least spur a discussion in agriculture circles about factory farming practices.