An article on the BBC today is about a cross breeding of a featherless chicken and a broiler chicken to yield a fast growing featherless chicken, Weird Looking, see picture at Featherless Chicken,BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2000000/2000003.stm

"Professor Avigdor Cahaner, who led the project, told the BBC: "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."

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), May 21, 2002

Answers

That is one Godawful ugly chicken! Makes Turkens look attractive.

I wonder if that red skin color remains after processing? It doesn't look attractive to me but I suppose if it were skinned you wouldn't be able to tell. Not a homesteader's chicken by any means.

Anyone know how to knit a chicken sweater?

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), May 21, 2002.

eeeeeeeeyuck. That is really sort of disturbing...

You know, even without feathers...which would obviously "distort" your visual comprehension, doesn't it's head and neck look totally out of proportion to it's body? And if it's supposted to be a meat breed, THAT makes no sense.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow1@aol.com), May 21, 2002.

Alan,

I was thinking sweaters also.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), May 21, 2002.

looks like a Yard Flamingo !!!!

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), May 21, 2002.

They said on the news this am, you have to keep the chickens out of hot sun or they fall over! hee hee Weird lookin chickens, and look like their drunk when it gets hot to boot!

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), May 22, 2002.

For those of you who saw these chickens on TV, didnt their wings look weird? Now its true I have never seen a naked chicken walking around before, but I HAVE seen thousands of naked dead ones, considering I sold hundreds of em every year for a dozen years. Those wings looked deformed to me, very small and crumpled up or something.

Once again, Mother Nature is probably shaking her head at the silliness of humans.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), May 22, 2002.

Yes, I agree. It always reminds me of Chief Seattles oration, (which isn't historically correct, but still profound) particularly the interconnectedness...

CHIEF SEATTLE'S LETTER

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.

One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow1@aol.com), May 22, 2002.

Designers fashions for pet chickens? Chicken sun tan oil? A Chicken Tattoo shop? A Feathers and Skins game down at the Park? Racial divisions among chickens based on the amount of pigment in their skins? I don't think I'm ready for this.

BC, notice that I never see you at Homesteading Today. Miss the benefit of your research. Maybe this site will build up and you will have more of a chance to strut your stuff.

-- paul (primrose@centex.net), May 22, 2002.

Actually, to clarify, this is the part of the oration it reminds me of, "Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." Like ripples in a pond. But, thought I'd post the whole thing, in context.

I realize that this isn't GM, but even certain breeding standards, cause me to question. It's just steps, tiny steps, seemingly insignificant, that lead to a place I personally don't want to be. Is this a superior animal? I think not. Are we improving this animal, to be all the things I think of as being progressive, genetically? No, I think not. Maybe we ought to just remove the brain, lay them out, and IV feed em?

This is about manipulating genetics for the masses. The masses who for the most part have no concept of management, housing, etc., etc. It's yet another nonsensical agri-business endeavor. It's about cheap food at any cost.

Take Holsteins for example. They have pretty much replaced other breeds nationally as the milk producers. They are huge, bred for mass milk production, but have inherent problems...partially due to management style, partially due to genetic manipulation. Fact is, that they are so closely bred, using the same genetics, that....well, I think it asks for trouble...

I guess that this is just a subject that sort of speaks to me, this case being a very minor manifestation.

The acceptance of more and more "questionable" manipulation....that...ain't good.

Take GE crops, cloning, GE 'skeeters giving everyone immunizations, crossing ebola with anthrax.....all in the name of, "progress"? I guess I'm crazy, but this seems way wrong to me.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow1@aol.com), May 23, 2002.

I live in a subdivision so I can't keep chickens. Maybe if I got a couple of these birds and trained them to stand really still, the neighbors would think they were just some of those plastic flamingos! :)

-- Sherri C in Central Indiana (CeltiaSkye@xaol.com), May 24, 2002.

Those poor chickens! Can you help but wonder what they will have in mind for humans some day? ?

Speaking of holsteins. I was at a holstein dairy a few weeks back. It wasn't milking time, and the cows were in a building lying up on elevated concrete slabs in some very uncomfortable looking positions, ( I guess to keep from lying on those humongous gawdawful udders), the place was literally swimming in cow manure, and instinctively I raised my eyes to heaven, clasped my hands, and said, " Please God, don't let me come back as a holstein"!

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), May 24, 2002.

My daughter is one of the head milkers at a University Dairy Farm. (They pay for Vet. School, and she gets a GREAT salary...it's a good deal!) She really likes it, but it was very hard for her at first. Coming from the original, "big softy farm" it was quite a change. She's a vegetarian, so that's one of the reasons she originally started raising dairy animals.

I remember she cried her eyeballs out about ole, "one-toed-Agnus". (Radical culling....even on what most would consider superb animals.) Now, I think she is desensitized.

If I was interested, I'd have a herd of incredible Holstiens taking advantage of these management practices. Simply picking up their "castoffs" at the sale barn. If you have word, you can pick them up cheap, young too, alot of times. Genetics, desease free, from a closed herd. And once out on pasture they do great(if feet are the problem). That concrete really tears up feet and legs, and of course, yes, the amount of milk they are carrying! It really is mind boggling what they can milk! I've heard of culling a girl that has mastitis (due to a screw-up) and they won't even bother to treat...if it doesn't clear up in a couple milkings, she's gone.

Buuut a Holstien isn't a good family cow, give me a sweet Jersey girl anyday!

Still, it's a very nice facility as far as they go. And you can't blame anyone,...but ourselves really. It's the all encompassing demand for cheap abundant food.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow1@aol.com), May 24, 2002.