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Featherless Chickens

Everyone and their brother wrote in about the featherless chicken. Besides the humor value, interesting in that we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own.

8 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. MSNBC Factually challenged... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) The chicken is a hybrid of two types of chickens; it was not genetically engineered, as the article, or at least the photo caption say.
    2) These chickens would not "catch cold" due to lack of feathers. You do not "catch a cold" from being cold. You (and your chicken friends) catch a cold from germs, not matter how hot or cold you may be.

    but hey, wtf do I know.

    1. Re:MSNBC Factually challenged... by C60 · · Score: 2, Informative


      In a cold environment most chickens die from asphyxiation rather than anything else. They have a tendency to cluster very tightly together to preserve their body heat and end up suffocating one another.

      When I was a child, I had the onerous duty of raising chickens in upstate NY through a very bad winter. It was quite a shock to come in from the snow one morning to find a pile of dead chickens in the center of the coop.

      Regardless of how much cross breeding they do with chickens, nothing is going to make them any more intelligent.

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  2. Re:Animal 54? by Triskaidekaphobia · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try Snopes for all your urban legend needs.

  3. Re:Kentucky Fried Chicken becomes KFC by Ledge · · Score: 3, Informative

    I read somewhere that the reason Kentuky Fried Chicken became KFC was to drop Fried from the name, due to the fact that fried foods aren't supposed to be good for you.

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    If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
  4. Re:Cancer birds by Triskaidekaphobia · · Score: 2, Informative

    Farmed chickens are kept inside all day under artificial light.

  5. Read the Damn Article by gnovos · · Score: 4, Informative

    Besides the humor value, interesting in that we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own.

    Well, if you had READ the article instead of just looking at the picture, you would have seen that these chickens actually have a HIGHER survival rate in tropical areas (where it is originally designed to be introduced) becuase the feathers would trap heat that would otherwise kill the bird.

    Here so you don't have to strain your eyes actually reading that tiny 12 point font from the first few paragraphs:

    "(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."

    "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.

    --
    "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
  6. Re:Kentucky Fried Chicken becomes KFC by damiangerous · · Score: 4, Informative
    Allegedly, the reason for Kentucky Fried Chicken changing their name to KFC was that in Canada, the meat they were serving could no longer be legally called Chicken.

    Old Urban Legend, debunked by Snopes.

  7. Suited for life with Man, unsuited for life withou by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Like silkworms moths (I'm sure there's a better word). These moths cannot mate on their own because their bodies are too unwieldy after having been bred over a couple thousand years. Without Man, they simply would cease to exist, at this point.

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