Ready to Cook Featherless Chicken

Oct 12, 2011 14 comments

An Israeli geneticist, Avigdor Cahaner, created the world's first featherless chicken at the genetics faculty at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute near Tel Aviv, Israel. The bare-skinned bird was created by cross breeding a broiler with a species that has a featherless neck. The idea behind the development of this naked bird is that it will create a more 'convenient' and energy efficient chicken which can live in warm countries where feathered chickens don't do well and cooling systems are too expensive to be commonly affordable. And of course, the bird doesn’t require plucking, saving additional money in processing plants.

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Opponents of the chicken say that the changes do not benefit the animals, and are in fact likely to make their lives worse. Males have been unable to mate because they cannot flap their wings for balance, and this also effects the females. Because they are featherless, chickens of both sexes are more susceptible to parasites, skin diseases, mosquito attacks, temperature variations and sunburn.

Professor Avigdor Cahaner, defended the bird by saying, "This is not a genetically modified chicken - it comes from a natural breed whose characteristics have been known for 50 years. I am just transferring that to fast growing broiler chickens. It's a normal chicken except for the fact it has no feathers." The scientists also hope the new breed will grow faster because it won't need to use energy to grow feathers and that will would also cause the chicken itself to grow larger.

News about the featherless chicken first broke out in 2002, and since then nothing new has been heard. The lack of updates in the media about the special chicken indicates that Mr Cahaner’s creation was never breed commercially.

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Sources: 1, 2

Comments

  1. This is really sad!!! messing with the poor animal's well being

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  2. Not a genetically modified chicken my ASS!! If all they did was cross breed the chickens, why did it take at least 12 YEARS for them to achieve their (greedy, lazy) goal?!! I read about their research 12 years ago!!

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  3. There is a lot to be said for being vegetarian. Ethics is obviously out of the equation. Us humans have a lot of karma coming back at us! Where are animal rights?? Obviously they are at the bottom of the ladder! Humans are still killing each other, so chickens have no hope. Of course one seems to be able to justify anything these days. It starts off with chickens but where does it finish??? Not happy!

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  4. UV radiation, baby! Next, his chickens will get skin cancer, which is why they evolved to have feathers!!! (Along w the breeding thing and flying for other birds...) Chickens were obviouls not meant to live there... Eat something else! Like goat.

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  5. It helps in hotter countries such as Indonesia as there is less fuss for the farmers.

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    Replies
    1. what fuss? My grand parents which was an Indonesian traditional chicken farmers doesn't really care about those feathers or any hot temperature at all, it's those "efficiency" that brought by western corporation to stuff one place into an overcrowded chicken barn that makes those chicken start sweating and demands some air conditioning.

      Also, if you ever seen a real chicken fresh after getting chopped and their feathers plucked, their skin are more brownish/white than those reddish skinned chicken in the picture... I don't know if it's skin would taste the same as the usual chickens.

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  6. Eat what you are served as long as you make demand for it. Excellent idea for Industries!

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  7. I never thought chickens could look uglier until I saw this article.

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  8. Wrong thing to do. Get a life

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