[Scpg] featherless chikn

[seedmind at usa.net]

now they're thinking. when they come up with skinless onions...then we'll 
have an easy soup!
akiva
---------------------

July 09, 2002
Israeli researcher creates featherless chicken  

Photo at:  http://www.FactsOfIsrael.com/blog/archives/000181.html

Israeli's naked chicken plan may make feathers fly
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/
newsid/16075/story.htm

JERUSALEM - Chickens could fly even faster to the dinner table if an 
Israeli geneticist gets his way and develops the featherless fowl. 

Avigdor Cahaner, from Israel's Hebrew University, has crossbred a small, 
bare-skinned bird with a regular boiler chicken as part of a research 
project to develop succulent, low fat poultry that is environmentally 
friendly. Cahaner's red-skinned chicken looks a little ridiculous, but 
the lack of feathers keeps the birds cooler and leaner than their 
feathered cousins - useful in hot countries.

The hybrids, the geneticist believes, could revolutionise the chicken 
business.

"(Boiler chickens) consume a lot of energy in order to grow rapidly but 
in the process they generate a lot of heat and they have to get rid of it 
otherwise their internal body temperature will go too high and they will 
die," he told Reuters this week.

"That's why the growth rate of boiler (chickens) is significantly reduced 
in hot seasons or hot countries and that is why the poultry meat is 
expensive in these countries."

By keeping the chickens feather-free, the birds would direct their energy 
to growing larger rather than keeping cool.

Cahaner's naked birds would also save poultry farmers large amounts of 
money on ventilation to prevent their chickens from overheating. The lack 
of feathers would conserve large quantities of water used to pluck 
chickens at feathering plants.

"This water is full of feathers and drainage of fat from the carcasses. 
We believe that this part of the pollution can be reduced and feather 
plants can be completely eliminated," Cahaner said.

LESS WASTE

The featherless fowl would be well suited to poor countries where farmers 
can ill afford to lose birds to overheating.

"It's called sustainable agriculture," Cahaner said. "Feathers are a 
waste, the chickens are using feed to produce something that has to be 
dumped and the farmers have to waste electricity to overcome the fact."

Cahaner has already produced several dozen featherless birds but hopes to 
perfect the still diminutive fowl so they stand as tall as the normal 
boiler chickens that are the mainstay of the poultry industry.

"My objective is to transfer this (featherless) trait to modern fast-
growing boiler chickens and learn and study the effects on growth rate, 
other aspects of welfare and its development and of course of the meat 
characteristic," he said.

But featherless chickens would not be suitable everywhere, Cahaner 
concedes. They might catch cold in chillier climates.

"It would harm them if we forced these chickens to be outside in cold 
weather...This is not a chicken for the open fields of England in the 
winter time," he said. 

Story by Megan Goldin 
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE