# Egg-laying hens: no eyes or feathers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 22, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309 "2012-08-22T21:11:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/21 "2012-08-23T01:40:07Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > There’s a possibly-biased article [here](http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2007/05/the-difficult-lives-and-deaths-of-factory-farmed-chickens/) about the conditions in commercial henhouses. If it’s to be believed, I think I’ve discovered how this acquaintance of mine might have gotten this eyeless-and-featherless impression when looking at the hens. > > Regarding eyes, the article says: > > Regarding feathers, the article says: > > I suspect he mistook the discolored, blinded eyes for empty eye sockets, and the lack of feathers on some parts of the body as a total lack of feathers altogether. I was raised on an egg farm with 40,000 chickens. This is all entirely complete bollocks. Egg-laying chickens look like any other birds, pretty much. The only time they suffered any particular injury is if they had to be put more than one in a cage (this sometimes happened briefly just before a cull of less productive birds), sometimes they’d peck each other. When kept in separate cages they were perfectly healthy and happy - if they weren’t, they wouldn’t lay. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/22 "2012-08-23T02:08:57Z")
I’ve heard that sometimes chickens in these factory farms have the tips of their beaks cut off so they can’t peck other chickens. **tracer** , maybe your friend heard about that and thought that maybe the feathers and eyes were removed too? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/23 "2012-08-23T02:24:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Most cities (implied by your “back yard” phrasing) won’t allow roosters at all, I assume on noise grounds. And if you’re keeping the chickens only for their eggs, there’s no point in letting any of them hatch at all (not that they would, without a rooster): When your first generation of hens dies off, you just buy more. They’re only a few dollars each. I don’t know about chickens, but a quail farm I went to used incubators because the birds had lost the instinct to incubate. You can’t just use a lightbulb because you have to turn the eggs every 6 hours or something. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/24 "2012-08-23T02:29:34Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I once had a janitor at UC Davis tell me that someone had once bred a featherless chicken, with the idea that it would save the expense of plucking. The idea was supposed to have been scrapped because the birds sunburned too easily. I make no claims as to the validity of the story. That’s mostly accurate, although it’s unclear to me whether anyone actually tried raising them on a commercial scale. > **[BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bald chicken 'needs no plucking'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000003.stm)** > > Scientists have bred a controversial featherless chicken which they say is faster growing. > **[Ready to Cook Featherless Chicken](https://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/10/ready-to-cook-featherless-chicken.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Qwakkeddup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Qwakkeddup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwakkeddup)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/25 "2012-08-23T03:20:51Z")
Clipping of the beaks and spurs is what I remember the outcry was about. That was at a couple of chicken factories that supplied Tyson with chickens. I believe it was local though in Missouri when we lived there. Once a week the dead wagon loaded with deceased chickens rolled down the highway around 2pm. You could smell it before you even heard it. I stopped eating lunch on those days, too hard to keep it down. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/26 "2012-08-23T03:23:06Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Oom bip bip, oom bip bip, yeah! Well done! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/27 "2012-08-23T03:32:31Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Consider…what would be the point of breeding hens with no feathers or eyes? What would be the economical advantage? What would the return on investment be for companies doing this (even assuming it’s possible, which I doubt)? Well, in theory if you were good enough at genetic engineering, a chicken with everything but the bare minimum of body necessary to produce eggs could produce more of them for a given amount of nutrition. Of course, by that point you probably _would_ end up with the “meat with tubes sticking out of it” that **Erdosain** mentions. ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/28 "2012-08-23T09:23:18Z")
There are indeed breeds of [featherless chicken](http://www.google.ch/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1078&bih=930&q=featherless+chicken&oq=featherless&gs_l=img.1.0.0l10.2171.4847.0.7269.11.8.0.3.3.0.71.471.8.8.0...0.0...1ac.CYWMiQHtqLw) > [@](#): > > But critics say past experience with feather-free chickens resulting from random genetic mutation shows they suffer more than normal birds. Males have been unable to mate, because they cannot flap their wings, and “naked” chickens of both sexes are more susceptible to parasites, mosquito attacks and sunburn. ([new Scientist article](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2307-featherless-chicken-creates-a-flap.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/29 "2012-08-23T17:54:41Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > That’s mostly accurate, although it’s unclear to me whether anyone actually tried raising them on a commercial scale. > > [BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bald chicken 'needs no plucking'](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000003.stm) > [Ready to Cook Featherless Chicken | Amusing Planet](http://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/10/ready-to-cook-featherless-chicken.html) Oh, my. The pictures! Those poor things look off-balance. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309/30 "2012-08-23T18:09:24Z")
It’s not so much “retelling an urban myth” as it is “learning about the worst sort of treatment commercially-raised chickens endure and then exaggerating that to the condition of all commercial chickens.” Acid-burned eyes and rubbed-off feathers do occur, but it’s going too far to assert they’re all like that. We had chickens for years when I was a kid, and I dispute that they’re especially dumb. A lot of our contempt for chicken mentality comes from three sources [ul] [li]Domestication has almost certainly cost them some brainpower[/li][li]We see what we want to see[/li][li]It makes us feel better to assume they don’t have any thoughts[/li][/ul] I’ve seen a chicken outwit a cat. Granted, he was a Jungle Fowl, and possibly closer to the ancestral ur-chicken than the ones we’re talking about. He crowed a mighty crow, too, after he bested her, and well-earned. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-laying-hens-no-eyes-or-feathers/632309.md?page=1)