The Most Deformed Animals Humans Have Created - Part1

[00:00:01]Gibber Italicus Canary. This is a canary. They have beautiful songs and are full of energy. The only problem is that they looked too ordinary. So, in the early 20th century, Italian breeders decided to do something about it. They selected birds with long necks, slender bodies, sparse feathers, and unusual postures. Eventually, they created the masterpiece we see today, the Gibber Italicus Canary.

[00:00:25]In professional canary shows, the best specimens have a long, snake-like neck, a seven-shaped posture, an almost bare chest and legs, and only a few patches of stiff, curled feathers scattered across their bodies.

[00:00:38]I'm sure many people are thinking the same thing. This is beautiful, but the truth is, some people actually love them and are willing to spend a lot of money creating canaries that look even stranger. Maybe we still have a lot to learn about beauty.

[00:00:52]Today, these birds certainly stand out, but that look comes at a cost. Their feathers are sparse and provide almost no pro- tection against the cold. Years of inbreeding have severely weakened their immune systems, making them more susceptible to disease. With almost no feathers covering their legs and chest, they're also more vulnerable to injury and infection. On top of that, their unusual shape makes it difficult for them to rest like normal birds do. Many Gibber Italicus Canaries spend their lives constantly trembling from stress.

[00:01:22]The long-term physical and mental stress wears them down, and many of them die much younger than normal canaries.

[00:01:30]Featherless chicken. Chickens are one of the most common foods we eat, but they usually live terrible lives in horrible living conditions. To make more money, farms often raise them in at extremely high densities, like this. As density goes up, the temperature climbs, too, especially in tropical regions. High temperatures don't just make them less efficient at turning feed into meat. It also increase the risk of death. You might be wondering, why not just install cooling systems? Well, that equipment is expensive to buy and maintain. So, someone came up with a brilliant idea.

[00:02:04]If chickens didn't have feathers, wouldn't that solve the cooling problem once and for all?

[00:02:08]>> Huh?

[00:02:09]>> Meet the featherless chicken. Yep, it looks like an unfinished chicken.

[00:02:13]Without feathers, chickens can cool down more easily. So, in theory, they can grow faster. And without feathers to grow, more nutrients can be used for muscle growth, improving feed efficiency. Another practical advantage is that there's almost nothing to pluck during processing, which means less work and lower costs.

[00:02:31]Of course, all of that comes at a cost.

[00:02:34]Without feathers for warmth and protection, featherless chickens get cold easily and need heating whenever temperatures drop. Their exposed skin also burns easily under direct sunlight.

[00:02:44]They also get scratched much more easily and are more likely to be bitten by mosquitoes and other external parasites.

[00:02:50]Making matters worse, chickens have a habit of pecking at wounds. Once a chicken gets a small scrape, the others will keep pecking at it. Without feathers, this happens much more common, leading to a higher death rate.

[00:03:03]You think that's the end of it?

[00:03:04]Featherless chickens can't even mate properly. During natural mating, a rooster grips the hen's feathers with its beak to keep its balance. Without feathers, this is almost impossible, so natural breeding has a very low success rate and they rely on artificial insemination. And that's exactly why featherless chickens have never become a mainstream meat chicken. Even today, they're still mostly used for research and small-scale breeding.

[00:03:30]Parlor roller pigeon. Most people think pigeons are ordinary animals. They're not cute or interesting and they're obviously not ideal pets. In the 1860s, some breeders noticed that a few pigeons didn't just roll in the air. They kept rolling after they landed. People found the behavior entertaining, so they began breeding pigeons that rolled the farthest and fastest on the ground. The result was the roller pigeon we know today.

[00:03:55]Pigeon flying competitions are common.

[00:03:57]But, what if the competition took place on the ground? Breeders hold contests for parlor rollers, where they are judged on distance, speed, and smoothness. To win these competitions, breeders focused entirely on this rolling behavior. As a result, the pigeons lost their ability to fly and could only keep rolling across the ground.

[00:04:16]But, for breeders, watching a pigeon roll across a lawn like a wheel is part of the appeal.

[00:04:22]For roller pigeons, the cost of losing the ability to fly is obvious. They can't escape predators such as cats, foxes, or birds of prey, leaving them with no chance of survival in the wild.

[00:04:33]Fortunately, they are almost entirely dependent on humans, and no one will release them into the wild.

[00:04:39]Their rolling is caused by a neurological disorder. It's something like a seizure. While rolling, they can't control their bodies, so they often crash into obstacles and injure themselves. It can also cause intense fear and stress, which will weaken their immune system and shorten their lifespan.

[00:04:57]Fainting goat. In the 1880s, farmers in Tennessee noticed that some goats would suddenly stiffen up when startled. They were born with a rare genetic mutation.

[00:05:07]It caused their muscles to lock up whenever they got frightened or excited, even though they remained fully conscious.

[00:05:13]After seeing this, they began selectively breeding them. One reason was that fainting goats were kept with more valuable livestock and used as decoys. If a predator showed up, the fainting goats would collapse, giving the rest of the herd a chance to escape.

[00:05:27]As for what the fainting goats thought about this, no one ever bothered to ask.

[00:05:32]When the internet came along, this unusual trait turned them into internet celebrities. Videos of them falling over stiff after being startled went viral, and some people even started keeping them as pets. Their stiff muscles make it hard for them to jump, so even short fences are enough to keep them in.

[00:05:49]They also tend to have more muscle, and some people say the meat is more tender.

[00:05:53]>> What?

[00:05:54]>> This strange behavior is caused by a genetic disorder. Most of the time, they don't feel pain when this happens. But, if it happens in water or on a hillside, it can easily lead to suffocation, head injuries, scrapes, or even broken bones.

[00:06:07]This condition also puts them under long-term stress, weakening their immune system, and making them more likely to get sick. It will slow wound healing, and even increase the risk of stomach ulcers. Their heart and blood vessels also have to work harder because of repeated increases in heart rate and blood pressure.

[00:06:26]Merino sheep. Sheep are another animal that needed an upgrade.

[00:06:30]In medieval Spain, ordinary sheep had coarse wool. It couldn't be made into soft cloth. So, breeders decided to do something. Every year, they bred only the sheep with the finest, softest wool, and the highest wool yield.

[00:06:44]>> [bell] >> By the 18th century, they found an easier way. They started selecting sheep with more folds of skin because more skin meant more wool. That's how the modern merino sheep came to be.

[00:06:55]Merino wool is one of the softest and widest wools in the world, so it's widely used in high-end clothing. These sheep also grow a huge amount of wool.

[00:07:03]An adult can grow 4 to 5 kg of high-quality wool every year.

[00:07:07]>> Woo!

[00:07:08]>> They also adapt well to different environments, which is why they're now raised all over the world. But, those extra folds come with a downside. They easily trap dirt, making it easy for bacteria and parasites to grow. Even worse, they make merinos much more likely to get a deadly condition called flystrike. To prevent this, many farmers remove skin around the sheep's tail, so flies have fewer places to lay their eggs. I know, it sounds pretty cruel, but it's still the most common solution today.

[00:07:37]There's another problem. A merino's wool never stops growing, so it has to be sheared regularly. The most famous one was a sheep in Australia named Chris. He escaped and spent 5 years wandering.

[00:07:49]When he was finally found, people removed 41.1 kg of wool from him, almost as much as he weighed.

[00:07:56]Carrying that much extra weight puts so much pressure on his joints that he could barely run or jump. If he hadn't been found in time, he probably would have died of dehydration or starvation.

[00:08:06]Thank you for watching my video. I love you guys.