Featherless Chickens Can Take The Heat

Featherless Chickens Can Take The Heat LIVESTOCK Featherless chickens simplify the butchering process and they’re a lot more efficient in hot climate locations Professor Avigdor Cahaner at Hebrew University in Israel believes that in the heat they could reach market weight one week sooner compared to standard feathered broilers     “This is not a different breed rather an option that allows us to get featherless broilers from any existing breed ” Cahaner explains “We develop a stock which is similar to contemporary commercial broiler breeds except that it carries the featherless gene By mating males from our stock to females from any standard breed featherless broilers of that breed can be produced We are already at the point that we can offer such featherless males ” Rates of chicks born featherless vary from 25 to 50 percent depending on the genotype of the breeders     Work started at the university in Rehovot Israel in 2000 when researchers imported chickens with a natural spontaneous mutation called “Scaleless” found at the University of California in the mid 1950’s The mutation was found in a breed of egg production chickens named New Hampshire Tapping into the gene for raising broilers is all about efficiency Feathers make it more difficult to dissipate excess internal heat which reduces appetite In addition eliminating the need to grow feathers saves about 10 percent in feed costs Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Avigdor Cahaner Professor Hebrew University Israel ph 972 8 9489214; http://departments agri huji ac il/plantscience/people/  

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