What are these for?

[ksct]

I'm not sure if this goes here but....
What is the purpose of Turkens?
They are very cute (in a weird way) lol and I know some breeds have reason for lack of feathers etc but the only bird(s) (other than an ostrich) that doesn't have feathers, is a vulture etc. and that's because of what they eat.
What is the turkens reason? cross bred?
Thanks!!!!

 

[tadkerson]

It is only genetics. Some people like turkens and others do not. In France, turkens are bred to be broiler type chickens.

Tim

 

[Capone]

the turken was bread to have less feathers so the butchers could process them faster from lack of feathers

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

They're good for hot climates and meat production. Feathers are mostly protein and they can't be consumed so that's a lot of protein lost that was put into food for the chickens.

 

[Kev]

Tim answered your question.. it's simply a mutant that "showed up" in chickens and became popular for various reasons, such as easy to pluck, handles hot climates well(they are usually rather common in tropical areas. Very common in Africa, South America, many tropical islands etc).

In the poultry hobby, it's very common they are kept mainly for their different looking appearence. In concept, it's no different from someone keeping silkies.. if you think about it, silkies are even "weirder chickens", with many more mutants- black skin, silky, extra toe, crest, leg feathering etc.

As fore the "cause" or "reason" for the nakec neck.. first a little embryology.. on the chick embryo, feather follicles start out in specific spots on the body and spread out until they all eventually "meet" to create a mostly feathered over body. The Naked Neck mutant gene puts an early stop to this feather tract spreading on the embryo. So, the feathered areas you see are all the areas that are the *first* to start feather tract growth, and the naked areas are all the "areas that are filled in the later stages", if that makes sense.

So it's more of an "oops" than anything else but an oops that proved useful or popular to humans.