To Feather or Not to Feather

[BWArtist]

Well it's time for me to start thinking about raising some broilers for this year.

I stumbled onto this story and I can see how featherless chickens could benefit production in the developing world.

Just wondering what you think about a featherless chicken.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...es-a-flap.html

[tracerracer]

Didn't look....... Thinkin' featherless chickens, like hairless dogs, cats and rats would just creep me out .................. Tho, it's 'kinda' a pain, I'll keep the feathered, thank you very much

[Longtail]

The Turken or naked neck was used im development of that awful looking thing. Its not new, maybe 10 years ago they were making them. As one who studied poultry genetics with an interest in plumage( feather type and colorrs), those things to me are just plain awful! I dont care about any potential assets thay may have.

[RedZone]

This thread is not Politics of Food. It belongs in Off Topic.

RedZone
Administrator

[Silverbeard]

If all chickens looked like that, I never would have gotten them.

[Got Worms?]

If they don't care what they're doing to the chicken, then why don't they just add the Butter, Garlic and Lemon pepper genes while their at it. Also; they don't really need feet either, or the tail, that mostly gets discarded.

Gutless would be the perfect, you could buy them live, cut off their heads and just throw them in the oven. I guess that would be a little much to ask for.

I think I'll stay with my Golden Comets for now.
Charlie

[emalineisabear]

Charlie, I use the feet and the guts.



That said, I don't see the need to breed featherless chickens. Seems odd to me.

[BWArtist]

Originally Posted by RedZone

This thread is not Politics of Food. It belongs in Off Topic.

RedZone
Administrator

I apologize for the delay. I've been busy dealing with drought conditions on our farm and I haven't had a chance to come back to follow through with where I was going with this.

Yes featherless chickens is a bit odd but to corporate agribusiness in the developing world, where barns get hot and factory farmers have spend resources for the buildings to be cooled, I could see it making sense to them. As well as the breast meat yield increasing 2 to 3 percent because amino acids don't have to be wasted on feathers on a featherless chicken.

Anyway, eating more meat in the developing world, is a sign of status and wealth. A hard trend to buck when you consider all the politics involved to satisfy that cultural trend.

Here is an article to the opposite point of view....

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/534

[brenda70546]

we would need sunscrean for chickens