Scientists at the genetics faculty at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute
near Tel Aviv, Israel have created a mostly featherless chicken by cross
breeding a broiler (which are the big, meaty ones) with a species that
has a featherless neck. The idea behind the development of this ugly
thing 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.
Featherless Chicken facts:
Professor Avigdor Cahaner, who led the project, 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.
The featherless chicken has so far not reached the large “broiler’
size, probably out of embarrassment. Other ‘benefits” which inspired the
breeding of the chicken is energy conservation for the processing
plants. Without feathers to pluck, energy would be saved and there would
be no feathers to dispose of. Featherless chicken makes things easier!
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