IT MIGHT stretch the family budget a bit, but if you ever want to cook 10,500 chickens at once this is definitely the oven to do it in.

Weighing in at a whopping 45 tons, it is almost eight metres long, five-and-a-half metres high and five metres wide.

Luckily for local poultry, however, the oven has never been used for food preparation.

Instead it was a key piece of equipment at the former ABB transformer factory in Dundee. It was used to bake the moisture of the transformers, which were shipped all over the world until the plant’s Swedish-Swiss owner shut down production in late 2002.

However, the oven is not going to waste. It is on its way to Vietnam where it will be installed in a factory in the capital Hanoi.

The contract to prepare the oven for its 5750-mile journey was awarded to Dundee company Xm Services, a spin-off from tyre-makers Michelin.

The work involved disconnecting the oven from its kerosene plant and stripping out its cladding. It was then transported to Dundee harbour.

Xm project leader Sandy Webster said, “Dealing with equipment of this size and weight is no easy task, but it just goes to show that the skills still exist in Dundee to undertake this size and type of project.”