Selling points: Reduced need for air-conditioning. Feed efficiency- Why waste meal on extravagences like feathers? Ease of processing. Less waste to dispose of.
Um, excuse me sir, you’ve got a little bit of evil on you, there.
The picture of the one is appalling enough, let alone legions of them in battery farms. Ugh.
It’s ugly, that’s for sure. Beyond that, though, what’s the problem? Any cruelty issues about featherless chickens seem to pale in comparison to battery farming in general.
The article mentioned that featherless roosters may have trouble mating. Are battery chickens usually bred the old fashioned way, or do they use artificial insemination?
All I have to say is: That’s one uuuuuugly bird.
I saw these on the news earlier tonight-- ewwwww.
I’d also like to add that I read children instead of chicken, which made for one hell of an OP.
I eat somethat looks like that?!?!
I don’t see what the problem is with this. Sure the chicken doesn’t look as great as some others you may see, but farmers don’t really raise chickens just so they can get a spot on Elimidate.
If animal’s rights activists want to complain about anything, they might as well stick to the swift beheading of the chickens… because this pales in comparison.
mmmmmm meat.
LilShieste
Wow. This is the coolest thing since laser guided eels. Science kicks ass!
I’ve read plenty of horror stories about battery farming, but it seems to me that this is a little beyond animal-cruelty “icky”, to a sort of you-want-me-to-eat-that-ugly-red-mutant-freak “icky” - the sort of “icky” that’s open to anyone, even if you’re not a dirty hippie. 
It’s not as abstract as your run-of-the-mill pesticide-resistant, (but not scary-looking) vegetable GM, or even the spinach-enhanced pig. When the animal looks too fucked up to live, how many people are going to feel comfortable eating it?
I sort of thought it was cute. I love all chickens. They are sociable, intelligent birds and make great pets. I eat them as well.
Put me in with the group of people who are more concerned about battery farming than missing feathers.
People eat octopus…
I’m in favor of it. One of the uses is breeding them for poor farmers in undeveloped countries who cannot afford cooling systems for chicken farming.
I dunno, these chickens look like what a regular chicken looks like when you take the feathers off. Except they’re still alive.
Heheheheh.
Y’know, when you get right down to it, your average feathered chicken is pretty damn ugly to begin with.
Me, I’d eat a chicken salad sandwich while looking at a featherless chicken photo album.
I see no problem with this at all.
I think they are extremely beautiful birds. They are always depicted with stupid small beaks. But their beaks are actually long and beautifully curved, and their feet are huge and strong, like pterodactyl’s feel. Well-kept, their feathers are glossy, plump and full, their eyes are bright little jewels, and many have a lovely, warbling, songbird-like “cluck.”
You’re freakin’ me out, over here. You don’t drive a bookmobile, do you?
I heard on the radio this morning that people are against this because it’s “tampering with the food supply”. But this was made simply with selective breeding and cross-breeding, techniques that have been used since possibly pre-history. I’m not sure there are any chickens or cows on Earth anymore that aren’t products of selective breeding and cross breeding.
What’s a bookmobile?
Good call, Revtim, this is nothing but regular old cross breeding, just like we’ve been doing for the entire recorded history of animal farming. God forbid that anybody selectively breed a chicken that may help make food less expensive to produce. It’s only that this particular chicken breed is kinda “creepy” looking that makes people take notice.
The only animal cruelty question I see here is, which is more comfortable and healthy under typical agricultural conditions, a feathered chicken or a featherless chicken? Battery farms aren’t going to go away, whether or not there are featherless chickens.