An Israeli geneticist has created the world’s first featherless chicken breed.
Experts say that chickens raised for commercial meat have the genetic characteristics of eating a lot, gaining weight very quickly and their hearts working at a speed of up to 300 beats/minute, causing their body’s metabolism to progress. produced at higher temperatures than other chicken breeds. While rapid weight gain makes commercial chickens perfect for the growing meat industry, they also create a huge problem with overheating.
Raising broiler chickens in hot climates requires expensive cooling systems to control their temperature. To save energy and costs for farmers, Israeli scientists came up with the idea of creating a breed of chicken that does not grow feathers.
Variations in DNA codes can create many interesting things for animals. Featherless chicken is a bred chicken variation originating from the Hebrew University in Israel.
This is a chicken breed newly bred by Israeli scientists with the purpose of adapting to Israel’s hot climate and perfecting the country’s poultry industry.
Close-up of a strange featherless chicken – a product of science.
Professor Avigdor Cahaner shared: “We bred from a naturally featherless chicken breed known for 50 years. It is exactly like a normal chicken except that it has no feathers. Furthermore, these This chicken will grow very quickly because it does not need to spend energy to grow feathers.
Perhaps, compared to other chicken breeds, hairless chicken farmers will not have to spend a lot of money on equipping cooling systems on farms.
In addition, all the nutrients the chicken eats will be converted into meat, not divided into feather growth, so the chicken will grow faster.
In fact, featherless chickens are not DNA mutant chickens but due to special breeding. Researchers only selected chickens with little feathers, then gradually bred them to create these featherless chickens.
Featherless chickens live very comfortably in hot climates. Having no feathers will help the body stay cooler when the outdoor temperature rises.
Featherless chickens are not DNA mutations but are due to special breeding
However, poultry experts object to this study because they believe that a featherless chicken will hardly have good health. A male without feathers will not be able to kick the hen, because he cannot flap his wings to maintain balance when climbing on the hen’s back.
Besides, featherless chickens are more susceptible to skin diseases and parasite attacks. Mosquitoes can freely suck the blood of chickens. And chicken skin is also more susceptible to sunburn.
However, the main reason why naked chickens have not really become popular in the two decades since their introduction is because people are still not used to their “unnatural” appearance. Some denounced them as “a demonstration of sick science”, while others argued that normal chickens had suffered enough and there was no need to create more vulnerable animals. .
A study by Agriallis magazine concluded that the acceptance rate of featherless chickens among consumers will not be high “due to the fear of using hormones, unusual animals and health effects” .
