Pardon My Turkey!

discover these animals and more. As we asked the angel question, if Arnold Schwartzenegger was a chicken, what would he look like? So the ancestors of the chicken can be traced back to one bird, the jungle fowl. The red jungle fowl and maybe some hybridization of the gray. Jungle fowl is the single ancestor of all domesticated chickens. Their native to Southeast Asia, India and Sri Lanka. They were first domesticated

in India over five thousand years ago. The jungle fowl, at least the males, look somewhat similar to the image of the rooster you may be picturing, though they're a bit smaller. The females are also leaner than their domesticated counterparts. They only fly short distances, and the males do an interesting behavior called tidbitding, where they entice females with a bit of food that they pick up and drop repeatedly. It sounds like a bad dinner day, Am alright, am alright.

The jungle fowl is likely the single common ancestor of all modern chickens. For a time, there was a theory that there was a species called Gallus gigantius, a hypothetical extinct chicken that some believed existed based on bone fragments. It's a huge bird that loomed over the jungle fowl, and some believe that this interbreeding created the medium sized domesticated chicken. However, this is likely not the case. Those bone fragments were probably another chicken known as the Malayan fowl,

a very large breed of domes sticated chicken. These boys are a tall drink of water, standing over thirty six inches high, with legs for days. The point of this story is that artificial selection, the act of domestication, can be so transformative. It's easy to mistake a certain domesticated animal for an entirely different species. Today we'll be looking at the completely insane amount of morphological diversity among domesticated animals and the horrific, beautiful, messed up things humans have

done playing god with animals. Joining me today is my good friend, podcaster host, a gamefully unemployed and best bad movie ever, owner of a demon cat, and all around cool guy, David Bell. Hi, so good to have you here. Thanks for having me on. I'm very excited beyond Yeah. I love your cat. By the way, she's a great cat. She is objectively better than me, well well as a presence, she's I'm a better human. She commands more in terms of just fear, respect that comes from year perhaps. Yeah,

she's real feral yeah. Um. So I first want to say that I got a lot of the info for this episode from there's this beautiful book called Unnatural Selection. It's by Katrina Van Grow. She's a science author and an incredible illustrator and overall just way more talented than I will ever hope to be. I don't know if that's true. She can draw a chicken, though, she can draw a chicken like I've never seen anyone draw a chicken before. Yeah, that skill has limited applications though, joll

me like one of your fit French chickens cat Katrina. Now, it's a beautiful book. I think it's a book that anyone can read through, even if you don't have a deeper knowledge of evolutionary biology. It's just very well written and beautifully illustrated. I highly recommend it. Yeah, how can

you not like chickens? How can you not? It has so many It's not just chickens, it's also sheep and pigs and dogs and cows, and also all the domesticated animals that humans have concocted, which are often uniformly horrifying. It's I think it's like the ultimate revenge. As we were living in caves and like terrified for our lives, and we're like, we're not just gonna kill these animals. We're gonna We're gonna just slowly change what they are fundamentally.

We will bend their bones to our will. We will create a dystopian universe for these animals. We will take that wolf and crush its skull into the shape of a chihuahua, make it unrecognizable. Yeah. So, so we are indeed sort were monsters were godlike monsters. So first I want to start out with something simple or seemingly simple. The broiler chickens. So the broiler chicken is probably if you eat chicken, it's probably what you had for lunch.

It's bread specifically for meat production. Now I should start out with the caveat Dave, you are a vegetarian. This is true, and I've brought you here today to tort you. It's okay. I'm not, as we were saying before this. I I've been a vegetarian since fifth grade, since I was I don't know eight, I don't know what what age you are in fifth grade? Uh, and I never I just did it because I thought it was gross. I'm not against like, I'm not very preachy about it.

I don't get bothered by I would probably eat a very um exotic animal for the hell of it. Like if you if you gave me a baby, Yoda, I would eat babies, you know, because a little snack. It looks delicious, It looks delicious like jellybelly. Yeah. See, I just don't like me. I mean, I mean, there's definitely animal rights aspect in that, but you know, I think it's great. Uh, so this is going to be an

interesting podcast. I think it'll be interesting to get your perspective of someone who isn't addicted to the flesh of living animals. The broiler chicken is a modern breed that was actually concocted in the nineteen fifties, and they have been domesticated to accumulate weight quickly, so that at around four to seven weeks of age, they're already ready for slaughter.

They have white feathers, which means the reason they are white is so that after being plucked, their corpse looks more delicious because with brown feathers you can actually see little pin feathers, and I guess people are disgusted knowing that the meat they're eating was once a bird, so with the white feathers, you can't really see it. So it's like, oh good, just a clean chicken carcass that

I'm sure just dropped out of the sky. We should all aspire to have more delicious looking corpses, that is I yeah, you know, I mean it's it's one of my big goals is to die gorgeous and delicious looking. Due to the way the chickens were selectively bred to accumulate mass as quickly as possible. Their muscular skeletal structure precludes natural mating. We have we've screwed these guys up, these poor little fellows. So they're they're large breasts make

it difficult for mounting to occur. Now want to say breasts, I don't mean human like breasts. It's it's the chest area where you have the muscles, and it's the breast that you eat. You know, not needed Dave, but other people, those of us who have this the sanguine desire for flesh. So to make more chickens, here's the thing. What do you do when you have chickens that are functionally celibate

because they're weird round chicken bodies are too awkward to mate. Well, the farming industry uses artificial insemination on a select few breeding stock of these chickens. So those are the only chickens that will be allowed to live past four to seven weeks because they're slaughtered before they even reach sexual maturity. And the way they collect well, okay, this is sorry, this gets a little blue, but it's science, so I have to do it. So they give males a back

massage until you know they popple chicken chicken bowner back massage. Yes, so they that's what does it for chicken, that's what does it for male chickens. And so they pitch a little chicken tint and then they well, YadA, YadA, YadA, they collect the semen. That's a job. That's a job of someone that's that is a career. Yeah, I would say I almost feel like the second part, while dirtier, is better than the first part of arousing, essentially arousing

the chicken. It's less emotionally fraught. Yes, because if I'm giving a chicken essential back massage, I've made a connection with this chicken. What if the chicken looks me in the eye? What's a connection? Oh no, what if you feel connected on a spiritual level to this chicken. I mean you've shared a moment and you'll never be able to unshare that moment, right, whether or not you're willing to admit it. You have shared a moment. Yes, and the chicken may become meat at some point. So what

do you do then? You can't? You can't eat a chicken after you've shared a back rub with the can I don't know, you just drink away the nightmares or something. So this dark, dark seed has been planted into the female's reproductive tract and more of these cute little abominations are born. So this paradox of non mating animals being propagated through selection is only really seen in nature in the context of youth social insects like bees and ants, and also naked mole rats, which is the only youth

social mammal. So you social means there's a queen and you have a colony of workers who all work to aid the queen, and they don't individually reproduce. Are you telling me there's a queen mole rat? Yes, naked moret that's amazing and I think we've talked about it on the show before. But they are grotesquely large, just like a queen bee. Where queen bee is huge and pumps out a bunch of baby, the queen naked mole rat

is huge and pumps out a bunch of babies. And it's the only like mammal is the mole rat that does that. Yeah, the only mammal that has a colony structure like a bee is the naked morat. Should we be worried about that? They live beneath us in vast colonies.

So no, I don't see what the problem is. So in these chunky broiler chickens, the genes that regulate muscle growth are just switched off, which allows them to continue developing muscle way past what is normal or good for the chicken, so their skeleton remains the same, meaning they suffer a lack of mobility due to their skeletons being unable to properly function under their massive musculature. Muscular true. Uh so even when they're raised outdoors, this is pretty heartbreaking.

The chickens aren't able to show high levels of activities due to physical weakness because they're just they're too swoll, They're too muscled, and they don't like walking too swallow. That's what it is. Too much muscles, muscles. It's a common problem that I have is too many muscles. I'm like, I will get up off the couch and actually do something, but too many muscles. This gun show is heavy. This guy, I know you've got two tickets to the gun show,

but you'll have to come to me. So keep in mind as we look at other chicken species that even the standard generic meat chicken is insanely constructed, it doesn't make any sense, and it is only made for human consumption, which is you know, I'm not a I'm not a vegetarian. I try to do my best to eat ethically in terms of like not eating too much meat. But regardless of your stance on vegetarianism, I think we can all agree that what we've done to chickens is it's an abomination.

It is an abomination. Ye that's uh. This is where personally I became more because as I got older, I got a little more like because when you're vegetarian, other vegetarians are like, oh, let's let's talk about it, which

is the most boring thing in the world. But the animal rights aspect, I've met vegans who will eat hunted meat, and that makes so much more sense where it's it's not the eat like I do think whenever I hear people being like, I'm trying to not eat means like, why that's your clearly I think designed to eat meat. We seem to be. Don't fight that, but it's the

way we eat meat. Is if we if everyone cut back on meat or looked for more humane farm raising practices when purchasing meat, I think that would be great. You know what, go to home depot, get a hammer, and walk out into the woods and just get some meat. Yeah, just whatever you find, don't care what kind of mean it is. So now let's talk about the Dong Tow, which is a Vietnamese chicken breed that was created as a result of a mutation that made thick, old feet,

big old chunky feet. Now, this is prep starts the image portion of the podcast for day that well, because feet are delicious. This is again it feels like it's revenge. So what's interesting about these chickens is actually, compared to the much more normal looking broiler chicken, they have a higher quality of life because they don't actually seem to be too impeded by their thickle hobbit feet. So they just stomp around and these big old leg warmers made

out of flesh. We made the more powerful. No, don't do that. We have made their feet giant and thick like hulk cans. So yeah, they look like they're wearing leg warmers made out of flesh. As always, I'm going to include lots of links in the show notes so you can look upon this Bauschian nightmare they live up to about a year before being slaughtered, so again actually more fortunate than the standard broiler chicken. The they are their feet are so big as a result of a

mutation that causes their feet to grow uncontrollably. And they're also known as the dragon chicken, probably because they're gonna kill us once they catch on to what we've done. You know, they'll they'll look in the mirror and be like, what am I? They've been probably like stomping on mice this whole time, got a thirst for blood and yeah, next they're splattered with blood. What am I? Am I a monster? So these guys are actually worth around two

thousand dollars per chicken. They're so prized for those thick, juicy feet, and the feet are that's what we're after is those feet to eat, eat the feet. They are considered a culinary delicacy. Oh yeah, I have more pictures I forgot here you go, Oh my god, they look glorious. They're just like boots, like remember eug boots, like egg boots made out of pink flesh. Yeah, yeah, which is yeah, I'm sure a thing you could make exist. Go out and collect meat and make sure are these feet? Any

good have you got? No, I haven't eaten these feet. They must be somewhere. Welcome to my new podcast called Did I Eat these Feet? No? I haven't. Yeah, it's I don't know. I'm I Maybe I would try it just for the sake of it, but I don't think I could afford two. The worst thing that could happen is you try and you love it, right exactly, because then I would have to that would become my whole life is raising and eating the feet from these chickens. But then I would feel bad about eating their feet.

So I'd probably do some kind of horror show thing where I amputate their feet and then just give them robot legs. No, but then robot legs, Oh yeah, why don't we just do robot legs for these chickens? Work out? I mean, it's cruel and horrific, But at the same time, robot leg chickens, I think I think they'd be fine with it if they could. We gave them the ability

to like jump really high, right, yeah, Mecca, Mecca chickens. Yeah, and then we just released them in the nature and like every now and then, you're gonna you're gonna encounter a robot chicken. But it's fine, right, and it'll be like, listen, I know one day you my children will come back to kill me for the crimes I've done against you. But this is this is the way you must learn the rage so that you may grow strong. Speaking of which, let's talk about the shamow and Ko Shamo chicken, which

is a chicken with disturbingly upright posture. Now, I gotta show you a video of this little guy. Oh, I don't know if I don't know how I feel about this. Yeah, just just let it sink in that you're seeing a chicken with perfectly upright posture walking around. Yeah, for people listening, it just looks like a what a person in a chicken costume would look like. Yes, it's uncomfortable is the word I would use to describe these chickens. And kind of cute. Here's a picture of a big one. So

they look curious. They look like they're it's like your cat seeing a hearing a noise and like getting on its hime legs. Any uh, any Charlie Chaplin fans out there,

there was remember gold Rush. There was a scene in gold Rush for there was a man in a giant chicken costume walking around, and it was because in the requires a little background on the film gold Rush, but they were starving in a cabin in the woods and the snow, and so they started hallucinating each other's food, and so you just saw them as this big chicken walking around. It looks like that, but obviously not human sized. Yeah. I mean any Looney Tunes cartoon as well, if they're

like on an island or start hallucinating like your big sausage. Yeah. So the coach Shamo is a former fighting cock breed from Japan. Over time, breeders selected for upright posture as an ornamental breed, meaning these are generally not used for consumption. It's just imagine a chicken. Now, imagine that chicken just sort of ironed out, straightened out, a chicken with a lot of confidence. So you said ornamental, they're not. Are

they still for fighting? Are they just pets? I think some Shamo chickens are still used for fighting, unfortunately, But I think some of the like the co Shamo and these these really upright ones, I think they're just used as pets and four shows and things like that. Get one of those you know, they're really some of these. I do now want pet chickens from these, but I also find it a little horrifying that we've done this.

It's it's a grotesque thing. Right. The way I think of it is like if presented with one yes, yes, I would be like one wound up on my doorstep in a little little baby bundle like with a little note saying please take care of me. I would adopt it and make it my son. Exactly. It's the same as my stance with eating exotic things. If someone was like a cooked a baby baby, yoda yoda for you, I'd be like, well, I don't condone what you want to get ways the baby. Yeah, but it's here right exactly.

It's that I would so have. It's only to just terrify my guests walking around. So it's similar to the English powder, which is not a chicken but a type of pigeon. And this is another bird that has been bred to have a very weird upright posture, very long legs, and also it has an inflatable neck pouch. So this is the inflatable crop is something that most pigeons have.

In fact, I think all pigeons male pigeons have that, and it's uh used in mating display and to kind of show off your your confidence level as a pigeon. But over time, breeders have selected for the biggest inflatable crops, which is the neck pouch, and the most upright posture resulting and this little guy, I'm going to show you a video. Oh I love them. Look at those balloon faces. Oh my god, they looked so proud. They're very proud. So they imagine imagine a beard, but it's a balloon

of feathers and then very long legs and fluffy feathery feet. Yes, I would put a little tuxedo on one, and I would tell people that it was a person who was cursed to become a chicken. What would its name would be like, Lord Byron Vaughn. Yeah, I think that's solid, Lord Byron Monocle, Duke of Western Shore. So they've been selected to have the most excitable temperaments. So they're always popping that that big old neck pouch. Oh my goodness.

So wait, they're angry too. They're excited, not angry, Well, they could be angry. I don't know what pigeon excitement Isn't necessarily like they're either constantly aroused or constantly angry, or maybe a mixture. Probably a mixture. Probably a mixture. Where's my sensual BackRub? So now onto. Maybe the cutest of the chickens are the silky chickens. These are the lapdogs of the chicken world. They have been bred to have a sweet temperament and to be soft and fluffy.

They look made up. They look like a Jim Henson puppet. Oh my goodness, they look exactly like a Jim Henson. They're really fluffy. They're they have these really fluffy, downy feathers. I'm going to show you a video because it really has to sink in that they're real animals. Once you see them moving around, oh my god, being a chicken from other positions, it looks like you would be looking at like a dog. Yes, it looks they look fluffy like a little dog. Here's a bunch of them with

with cool little little poof balls on their heads. Man, they look like um. They used to sell these puppets where it was like, there's I had one of those puppets. I wish. Yeah, it's like a big fluffy puppet in labyrinth. Those weird goblins that dance. Well, it looks. The reason it looks so similar to Jim Henson puppets is that they I think Jim Henson puppets use feathers for some of their fluffy are ones. The amount of animals that were slaughtered to those uppets, I don't think they were

Jim Henson. Oh no, So it was likely bread from the Chinese silk chicken. In the Some of the eighteen hundreds Dutch breeders claimed that the silky was a chicken crossbread with a rabbit because people in the eighteen hundreds were dumb as rocks. It's true they are kept as ornamental pet birds or do eggs sitting for other breeds, as they are very quote brooding birds, which doesn't mean they're off in the corner going like nobody unders stoned onto me. It means that they like to sit on eggs,

and they're very good egg sitters. So the way their feathers work is that the feathers have no barber cells, which are microscopic hooks on feathers that allow them to retain their feather shape. Have you ever like screwed up a feather? You know what? I mean, where you take a feather that's perfectly coming, you go the wrong way, Yeah, and then it's screwed up forever. That's because you've broken apart those barber cells which are actually hooking onto it

and giving it that structure. Hands, yes, exactly, exactly, So these do not have barber cells. So all their feathers are essentially down and soft and fluffy, and they look like the most wonderful thing to touch. And there's other chickens that actually have structural abnormalities with their feathers, such as curly feathers, like the frizzled chicken. You gotta see this. This is this chicken, isn't this is me as a chicken if I became a chicken. It's got really curly hair.

It's got wonderful locks of curly right, And that actually results from a lopsided structure of the feather, where like one side of the feather is structured out of sync with the other side so that it curls up. It's really funny, so onto. Perhaps my favorite of the chickens uh is the Arnold Schwarzenegger chicken, also known as the Malaysian cerama. It is a tiny angry looking chicken with a huge puffed out chest and upright posture like the shamow,

a huge chest like the broiler chicken. And it's one of the smallest breeds in the world. And I can't even do it justice verbally. Here's a picture of it. It looks like a looting to his cartoon. It looks like a little chicken that's trying to act tough. Yes, that has like a big temper because what it's it's also bred so that its wings are straight down, so it looks like it's at attention, like a soldier, a

tiny soldier chicken. In fact, in Malaysia they're also called a brave warrior or archangel chickens due to their brave stance they are. The chicks of this chicken are about the size of a human thumb. They're teeny tiny, and the adults are about I would say, about the size of a larger grapefruit, maybe a grapefruit. Okay, sorry, I mean, I don't know what kind of football you're playing with. I don't know, I don't know how, I don't I don't sports. You don't sports. Yeah, they they're also uh,

they don't weigh that much. They're about I think they're under like five grams or something. Why would we do this? Why would because adorable because it's like a this is you keep talking about wanting to eat a baby Yoda? Here it is? Are these getting eaten? No? No, I don't think so. I mean you could. I mean it would be like maybe like a thimbleful of me a tiny although we do eat quail and the really only

happ anything, right, Yeah, well that is true. Yeah, we will find if there's a way to eat something, we will find it. So the next one is I like to call it the goth chicken. It is the I Am Semoni chicken, which is jet black all the way through. So it is possibly the most deeply pigmented animal on the planet because even its bones and internal organs are jet black. So it originates from Indonesia. It's that goth. It is deep. This is not this is like typo negative. God, Yeah,

this isn't. This isn't. Oh I dyed one strand of my hair red and I'm goth. Now this is this is like I only wear nine inch nails shirts and my shoes lace up to my butt hole. Mindless self indulgence concerts. Yes, yes, this is. This is I have permanently tattooed dark makeup and shaved off my eyebrows. Goth the are the most These are the most goth that you can achieve. If your bones are black, that's the

most goth. They are from Indonesia. They have a mutation known as dermo fibro melanosis, which is so normally chickens and other animals have genes in skin, feather, hair, or fur follicular cells that control color. So the genes and these cells basically send out a request for melano blasts, which are cells that develop into melanocytes, which is these are all just fancy words to say that these are

cells that control pigment. And so if you have the gene in the cell, it's like, hey, pigment, come over here, give me some red color on these locks. Like that. That's that's how it works. But usually your bones don't have that gene. Your bones aren't like, hey, red hair gene, come over here and make my bones red. In the

I am so many chickens. Cells in the bones and other organs and feathers erroneously have the genes that ask for melana sites to come over, meaning they have black bones, which is a called like a mismigration of the milan in. It's the coolest thing I think an animal can do, to have black bones. I think that's the coolest thing.

It apparently makes the meat taste different. I don't know why we're eating the black bones chickens for the bones well, but the problem is these are clearly demon chickens, and we were basically, if you eat one of these chickens, I think that you will willingly signed onto Satan's army. Is one of his Oh yeah, Satan was like, I'm putting these demon birds in and see who eats them. Right now, I think about it's kind of a bummer to have awesome bones because there's only one way to

get to those bones, and it's not a pleasant way. Yeah, there's only one way to get to them bones. That's a that's a good that's a good catchphrase. I like that only one way to get to them bones. So it's a total restructuring of the genome to create these goth chickens, possibly being traced back to a single bird. Now, this is an interesting thing in evolution because this is known as a macro mutation. Where it's like one huge mutation.

So usually traits are developed over long periods of time, thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, just to get a slightly different trade or just to get a new trade, whereas there are macro mutations where just boom, suddenly your bones are black. Uh, And so the idea of macro mutations as being a driving force of evolution is mostly debunked. It was called mutationism, which argued big steps rather than small gradual changes, had to be responsible

for evolutionary progress. But this theory was mostly debunked by Darwin's national selection and Mandelian genetics that showed mostly when you have a huge like a big mutation, it's typically bad for the animal, and better to have these smaller mutations that don't hurt yet that kind of work towards maybe a more advantageous trait. Yeah, if your bones went

black overnight, very worrying. The hopeful monster is the name for the model of an animal who has a macro mutation that would become successful, And it was a model in n that is definitely never caught on and was widely ridiculed. But the hopeful monster model actually works well with artificial selection because humans are weirdos and we love to see crazy, insane animals that have black bones and huge chunky feet. We are the most like perverse of

the species on this planet. We didn't, Yeah, we do love an underdog, and by underdog, like a dog with an underbyte that we've breke right exactly. I've seen viral images that suggest the eggs of the i Am Smani Goth chicken are black, but in my research it appears the eggs are like pink. The black eggs are likely

a hoax. Images online of these jet black eggs maybe Oakudani black eggs regular chicken eggs that turn black after being boiled in Owaka Dani Valley, Hakone, Japan's hot springs, where the sulfur in the water causes a chemical reaction, turning the egg shells black and birds. Egg pigment comes from the reproductive tract. The squishy yolk and white of the egg is covered in calcium carbonate from special shell glands as they make their way down the bird uterus,

then they're covered in a layer of protective protein. At this point, patterns and pigments may be added from special glands that spray paint the eggs. It's like a factory conveyor belt made out of chicken uterus. This process takes only about twenty four hours. Those specialized pigment blasting glands can be so in utably precise that they're time to fire at certain times to produce specific coloration and patterning, often camouflage for each egg. When we return, get out

your hands in construction paper. It's turkey time. Gobble, gobble, everybody, it's turkey time. You know what a turkey is. It's roughly the shape of your hand plus some construction paper beaks and feet. The turkey, unlike the chicken, is indigenous to the America's Native Americans have been domesticating turkeys for

over one thousand, five hundred years. The ancestors of the modern day turkey meligress, Gallopevo, the wild turkey, have been linked to bone fragments, along with archaeological finds of fences and cages and corn in Central Mexico dated back to eight hundred BC, indicating that all ready the turkey was being held captive. Nowadays, the turkey that's on your table is a far gobble from the colorful blue red, pink,

and purple wild turkeys. So let's talk a bit about this noble creature who are once nominated by Benjamin Franklin to be the national bird, as Franklin considered them to be a bird of courage. God, I wish we had gone that route. Can you imagine how uch cooler America would have been. He's not wrong. They are a bird of courage, they really are. They are better. Yeah, they're a better analogy for America where they run in places

and tack people and freak everybody. It really I mean, but I think if we had gone with the turkey, we would have been a more humble nation because we would have been looking into a mirror, right, yes, a turkey shaped mirror. Oh yeah, And like there'd be a little turkeys on like the top of flag pools and like maybe like everything, we'd have busts of turkeys, Like presidential candidates would pose next to a turkey. God, it would have been so much better. He was, so we

probably wouldn't be eating them. I don't think once a year we'd be eating eagles instead. And eagles are they're like in certain places, they're past like like if you go to Alaska, you can just yeah, you can eat the eagle. I think I cannot fact check that right now, but I'm not sure if we can. If you can just eat eagles, if it's true, I don't know if it's If it's true, Alaska, that should be their state

motto because that's eagles. You can eat eagles here. I don't think it's I don't think it's legal to eat eagles. Probably illegal, eagle illegal legal. So domesticated turkeys have white feathers unlike the natural hand turkey variety, and it's the same reason as chicken, so their corpses look more pretty and so you can't see their pin feathers if they missed a few when they defeathered them. So they're called the turkey because Europeans stupidly misidentified the American turkey as

a guinea fowl from Turkey the country. But the Latin name for turkeys is gallopavo or chicken peacock, like that better chicken peacock. Yeah, this is a better name, isn't It makes it makes it feel a little weirder to eat them, like you don't eat peacock. Well, we don't, although I think you can in Elizabethan's You see. We talked about this on another podcast where I had Smart

Else host on Katherine Spears. We talked about how they used to uh eat peacocks and swans and then they would stuff the swan and peacock skin back with the meat, so you would be eating the meat out of a stuffed peacock. Yeah. I lived near peacock's growing up, and they are allowed angry animals and there's ever a bird that deserved to get eaten. We had a peacock take my family hostage when I was a little kid, just landed in our yard, stayed there. We fed it bread

and it would scream at us. It was great. I missed that peacock. So the wild Turkey's bit and Bob's are all male sexual displays. So that big old fantail all the neck business going on. So the fleshy head bump bumps are called car uncles. The fleshy protuberance that comes off the beak is called the snood. That throat dangles called the wattle, and the chest feathers are called

the beard. So the snood, which is that dangle thing that comes off the beak is like a beak weener, because when the male is displaying to females, the snood becomes erect, so the beard is like the pups. Yeah sure, yeah, I mean if we're doing the beak weener, the yeah, I mean it is, it's it's like straightens out it because yeah that. So to entice the female, the turkey will puff out its chest feathers and tail feathers, its struts and does a ritualistic sexy sneezing with an erect

snood in bright red e gorged her uncles. Then the turkey will also do body vibrations hot hot. So I want to answer a question, which is our turkeys stupid? Are they? I don't know. Probably I think that they are considered stupid, And the popular conception of turkey stupidity comes from the awkward way they walk, probably the the erect nudes that they do, and the stupid things that they do, like staring into the rain with their mouths

open until they allegedly drown. So I looked into this and specifically that behavior of staring into the rain is not actually stupidity or a death wish, and there's not really evidence that they drown in any significant numbers. It's caused by an inherited condition called titanic torticol or spasms, which is a result of our domestication of them. So it's a neurological tick where the turkeys throw their heads onto their backs and point their beaks upward into the sky.

I like to think that they're just asking God, why why have you done this? Right? And if they're drowning, they're just like end it. Yeah, it's not. They're not mesmerized. It's not some dude at burning Man. They're not like whoa when the rain comes towards you, like little dots man in space, it's like styles are falling on my face. So turkey advocates argue that turkeys are highly social and not as stupid as they seem, and they indeed have a lot of like social gobbles. They but they're they're

actually kind of aggressive towards each other sometimes. So they're not it's all not all sunshine and roses with with the turkeys, but they are they are highly social and they Yeah, I think that they're probably not as smart as say crows or you know, these other smarter bird species,

but they're probably not complete imbeciles. Did you see on the on the social media's there was a video of a turkey following a mail truck and it was apparently doing it for like a month, and it would follow it along and then whenever he'd stop and give him ale, it would like bother the mail. That's wonderful. So they're smart enough to be jerks. The Turkey Revolution come. Yeah.

I saw a video of a bunch of turkeys just circling a cat like and I think the cat may have been dead cat, and they were just they formed this circle around the cat. And the explanation I saw of it was that the turkeys were curious. But no, that's the devil. It's the devil. That's that's some sinister stuff. Or that's like Turkey time. This cat for the Turkey Revolution. So related to the turkey. I always think of the dodo because they are another cidered stupid bird which is

not actually related to the turkey. But I kind of want to give the dodo a bit of a reprieve from their perception as the dumbest animal. The turkey is

more closely related to chickens than to the dodo. Uh. The dodos had brains that were about the size of a pigeon's um, which we know doesn't necessarily mean anything about intelligent, Like crow brains are pretty small and they're actually very smart, so brain size doesn't necessarily indicate anything, but it is an indication that they may not have been There's no evidence to suggest they were much dumber than a pigeon, so they were considered to be stupid

due to how easy it was to round them up onto the ships of Dutch sailors on their native island. After the human invasion, the Dodo quickly went extinct in the late sixteen hundreds, and a lot of people attribute this to humans hunting them and the Dodos just being too stupid to not prevent their own mass demise. But

I don't think this is necessarily true. So the reason they were easy to capture wasn't because they were stupid, but due to the fact that as island birds, they were never exposed to humans or even comparably large predators that they need a defense strategy against. Right, they're just friendly, right end, neighbor, Would you like to come over and play some yachts? Do you play yachts? And we're like, yes, get into this box here, and we'll have a great

time coming to our ships. Please. Yeah. So consider the quaco, which is that adorable little mammal that's isolated two small islands off the coast of Australia. We've talked about it on the show. If you don't know what is, google that right now. They are adorable. Here let me show you. There's definitely certain species that if we decided to suddenly

eat them, it would be very easy. It'd be very it would be incredibly easy to just because we just haven't and they didn't, they're gonna be like, I didn't know they do that. So here's the quaca. Oh I've seen these. Yeah, they're adorable little mammals. They have no fear of humans because they live in on island and they they're only predators are snakes, so they have they just don't associate humans with a threat, so they'll take

selfies with you. Now, we are actually kind of a threat to them when we leave our litter or try to touch them or feed them and in general in general. Yeah, but if we just it's so frustrating because people you can take selfies with them as long as you don't touch them and you don't feed them. This could be a perfectly fine relationship, but I feel like we're going to mess it up by like shoving Snickers bars in them because they look so cute. We have to touch things.

We do have to touch a little belly. There's no way I can't. They can't bite, though they they'll they'll only allow so much interaction before they bite to So I feel like the dodos may have been similar to the quaca. So like, if they had been alive today, maybe we would would have taken a bunch of selfies with them. And they're stupid, happy little faces. Yeah, if we knew better, right, But if you're like showing up on island, you're like, I'm really hungry and these birds

are walking up like high. Yeah. Actually, so far from being the plump and juicy victim of dinner time, Dodos probably didn't die out because of overhunting. In fact, their

meat was not necessarily all that great anyways. The really juicy looking dodo image comes from captive, over fed dodos, whereas wild dodos probably died out due to the animal hitchhikers that invaded along with the sailors, so namely rats, rats, and other invasive species, likely eight dodo eggs, and out competed them for food until they were driven to extinction,

which is happens very easily on these islands. It happens to birds on islands when cats are introduced, because the birds just they don't have a natural predator as efficient as a cat, and then the cat comes in and just cleans that island up. Cats were an apocalypse for certain because we yeah, they were just what get on our boats and we'd be like, I guess we have cats now, which is how anybody ever gets a cat, and then we just bring them somewhere and be like

all right, get out and then just wreak havoc. Yep. Just I mean maybe that's why the turkeys celebrated the cat's death. Yea, the great destroyer has been killed, it has been felled. Now the greater turkey demon can take its place. It does make sense. And I think about it that like if if you see a bunch of anything circling a dead thing in a celebratory way, I'd

be like, oh, that's the murderer, right right. Yeah, generally speaking, yeah, it's it's I think the turkeys were probably right, yeah, yeah, most likely hashtag those turkeys were right. Turkeys were right? So why do we eat turkey? Okay, smart says, I know a bunch of you just said because they taste good. But hold on, there are all sorts of animals we eat who could be candidates for Thanksgiving dinner. Fickleness and human culture can shape the fates of domesticated animals, particularly

the turkey. Originally, eating turkey on holidays was likely practical. The turkey was a large bird, enough to feed a whole family, and slaughtering a turkey was more economical than a whole cow or a chicken, who was valued for its eggs and more succulent meat. Ham and brined cork was a staple, but wasn't considered special enough for a feast. In eight President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, and turkeys already had the honor of being the centerpiece of

the feast in American culture. Lucky then, in the twentieth century, turkeys had become associated with the working class, so the wealthy turned to game and beef to feel fancy. And thanks to Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol and Scrooge is generous gift of a Christmas turkey. The turkey became a popular Christmas staple. It's a Christmas miracle, but not for the turkey. The turkeys died. When we return, we'll talk about man's best fried friends. So did we originally domesticate

dogs to snack on them? A new study proposes that wolves were originally domesticated, at least in part for their meat. The study suggests that there was a single domestication event and that all domesticated dogs are descendants of these wolf ancestors from about fourteen thousand years ago. At these archaeological sites, ancient dog bones with marks that suggested they were butchered

for their meat were found. But fortunately for our canine friends, eventually we discovered that they were worth more to us seated next to the table than on it. I wonder sometimes when I look at my dog, I I go to I'm going to eat you, I'm going to eat Is that like an instinct, some kind of deep instinct? I think, so, yeah, I think we know dogs are delicious.

Now it makes sense. The moment we discover new animal, I think the first thing we do is a taste test, and then it's yeah, are they worth more as meat or are they worth more as a pet. I think about this with um, like if the apocalypse happens. If you have a dog, there's that loyalty where you're like like if there's no food around, and you're like, I'm not gonna eat my dog. But eventually you'd be like, man,

that dog looks pretty good. Um and the Honor Party famously in their journal road after they ate their dogs like it was a good dog. Yeah, it was doing a little joke there as they stared down cannibalism and death. Yeah. That's why I think cats tend to be like I think as pets they have more of the power because I think if I was faced with a situation where I was darving and I had my cat, I'd be like, it's hardly a meal, Like what's the point? I might

as well just keep it around. My My dog is fun sized, though she would be a little snack, A little snack yeah, but not yeah again like with a little dog, It's like, I don't know if this is worth it. It's interesting because I do think the smaller smaller the dog, the more the power dynamic shifts as well, like the dog knows like you're not going to eat me, not even worth it, Yeah exactly. That's why they're so pushy, like what are you gonna do about it? What are

you gonna do about it? Yeah? Yeah. So it is interesting because when you compare dogs to pigs, you do find that pigs are similarly intelligent to dogs, at least domesticated pigs. Pigs are on the way they're being promoted to pet soon, I believe. I don't know. I think I don't think we're gonna drop our pig eating habits. I mean, I'm I try not to eat it just because it creeps me out thinking about because like I

just associated it with eating a dog. Aren't they also, like I know, like they're pretty close to humans, like in terms of like their mass and like the there. Like it's not that they're like genetically close to us or anything. But when I think a pig flesh, I think, like, yeah, that's probably what a human I have heard that. I've heard that human meat would taste like pig, but I can't confirm that, having not ever eating a human. Clearly

I wouldn't know. I mean, I mean, come on, right, you know, not even out of curiosity, not even a reasonable amount of just curiosity of tasting it once come on anyways, So domesticated pigs are quite smart and are comparably intelligent to dogs. In fact, a recent study showed that pigs are capable of understanding how mirrors work, which I'm not even sure dogs have been able to do so.

So they may not know whether the image in the mirror is of themselves, but they can triangulate their location based on mirrors and use the mirrors to find food. So a lot of pig intelligence is food motivated, which honestly, same same my i Q jumps up like a hundred points when food is involved. So pigs also know how to deceive other pigs. So if one pig is trying to follow another pig to find where the food is, the pig being followed will try to throw off the

other pig from its trail, like yeah, exactly. So it's incredible because first you have the first layer of the pigs knowing to try to stake out the other pigs to try to find their food stash, and then the layer of like hopping in the taxi trying to lose the other pig, you know, driving into the wrong neighborhood. So the pig doesn't know where you live, wearing a pig disguise, a little pig mustache like warm rattle perg. Yeah, they're they're just not fluffy, that's the that's the problem.

If they became fluffy, we probably uh we would probably stop eating them. Well, boy, do I have news for you. There is a pig called the mangoza, which is a pig with a wooly coat like a sheep and of course not hairy like boars, which are no, no, not coarse hair, soft fluffy wool like a sheep. Oh wow, why did that happen? That's amazing. We made it happen. We shaped them. Did we just put the chia pet

seeds on it? Well, according to like old Europeans, we would have cross bread it with a sheep, because god, they were so dumb, like, oh, it's got wool. Most have been crossbread with a sheep. Anyways, I mean, honestly, I don't want you about animals. If I was just like left in a vacuum and saw that thing, I'd be like, I don't know, I guess it had sex with a sheep. Well, you know I can actually Okay, so a pig and a sheep I could conceive as

like an a sixteen hundreds European of believing that. But but the earlier example of the chicken and the rabbit, I would have a Rabbits can't do eggs, so I'm not sure. It's also like, there's no way you'd get those two to mate. They would just try to kill each other. Yeah. Yeah, So these are a Hungarian breed

of domesticated pig. They've gone out of fashion since they provide really lean meat, and they have been replaced by more modern domesticated pigs on the meat production side of things, but they are still reared as a specialty pig, fun furry friend of ours to pretend we don't eat some populations. Good news. They have gone feral in the Serbian wetlands and they are breeding with wild boars, meaning that we could have some wild, wooly wild boars in the future. No,

look like they look like wigs, wigs. They look at pigs with pigs with wigs, with wigs with those fancy like Victorian Oh yeah, like the Judge wigs or the Victorian wigs, or the French those French powdered wigs. Yes, I do. I do say they're like pigs in a monty pythons let the meat cake. So speaking of wild boars, Farrell Hawk, I know this is a Dave's pet issue. I've done a lot of research. Have you heard of the Ferrell hogs that found and destroyed a cash of cocaine?

Worth happened? That just happened. And we're learning about our cocaine, which is as humanity, that's our secret weapon. Yes, cocaine was always are that the sort of like when the penny drops, at least we have cocaine top card. Yeah. Yeah, if the aliens come and we really got we really got a focus and like fight them, We're like, all right, everybody do cocaine. The aliens do some kind of tabulation of like their their fight want is at only T and then we do cocaine. It's like, oh no, it

is off the charts, aboard, aboard, so many new screenplays. Yes, these Ferreal hogs found cocaine that was hidden in the Italian woods, and a wire chap on drug dealers caught them complaining about Ferrell hogs destroying their product. Wonderful. I just love that they're listening to this Hawaire tap like, man, those those Ferreal hogs twenty two thousand, just down the drain, will down the hog, really down the hog. I wonder, it's an interesting The hogs are just like I just

want to clean everything. Everything got gotta clean. Get a clean man. This forest is dirty. Wow, No one knows how many pineheals around want account, want account. So yeah, now Ferrell hogs have a taste for cocaine. They have beautiful, luscious wooly coats. They're basically becoming Hollywood. They are. They really are just gonna give them some fancy glasses, fancy glasses and and like designer shoes, and then suddenly they're like,

you know, yeah, they're there. They've made it. Yeah. Now I want to talk about actual sheep called the ancon sheep or also known as the otter sheep, which is it's a sheep with dwarf is m basically so otters. By the way, we really need to start domesticating them. There's a little off topic, but I think, like otters and seals, I think they're ready. I think they want to. Are they ready? Are they ready to be? Have us

shape their bones with our godlike powers unnatural selections. You watch those videos of like seals like getting attacked by killer killer whales and jumping out onto the boat like hey please, like I think that. I think if we took one home, they'd be like, all right, this is cool, this is easier cool. And they crap everywhere and bite you. Ye, I mean sure, that's when my cat does. Sounds like my dog too. So that's the little little guy. They got little stubb legs and they are now they're not

an actual new species of sheep. They're just it's a sheep that basically was descended all from one mutant sheep, and they have dwarf is um, so they have shorter legs. That connective tissue isn't. There's a mutation in their jeans that just gives them that shorter skeletal structure. When you say one, it was like one little horny sheep, one little horny sheep at necessarily especially horny. It was just one sheep. And then a farmer saw this little stubby

like sheep was like, not sheep can't clamb fences. Well, we're going to breathe that sheep. That is the that's the weirdest revelation I've had about this stuff. Is I looked into my cat breed, which is an American Bombay, And that's just one lady in the thirties who was like, I wanted to make little panthers. And it's like, okay, like I have had seven husbands, but have I haven't had a tiny panther. It's like ground zero these these, Yeah,

it is. It is weird how one human has the power to craft a new misshape and animal and then we're all like, oh, let me get one of those. Yes, so yeah, no, it literally the farmer that first encountered the sheep was like, well, I don't have to build tall fences because this sheep cannot jump over fences. No, that was literally the actual story, and they actually these sheep were important to Darwin because it helped him argue

the case for inheriting independent characteristics from parents. So it's not always a blend of traits. So you have one really tall parent and one really short parent and then you're like medium sized. But you can have just one trait that's inherited that wins out over the other, like dominant recessive genes. Uh so yeah, it's a it's a it's got stubby legs, but a big heart. So now this is exciting. I want to talk to you about swoll cows. Swoll Cows is not their real name. That's

the name I gave them. And they are it is a species, or not a species, but a breed of cow called the Belgian Blue, which is a mutant cow with huge muscles. These aren't because I am aware that there are Nazi cows. Have you seen those? What? There are cows that the Nazis, specifically bread that are still around today and they're very they're very aggressive, like they do not like people. They are Nazi cows. I don't think these are the same. I'm hoping not. H I don't.

I will say I highly doubt that these cows hold any Nazi beliefs. Yeah, I don't think the Nazi Nazis cows are just well I don't know. They're very aggressive, but they have a lot of anger. No, so these are these are more just like jim rat cows. So look at this, Oh, look at these bro cows. They're broke cows. They're completely yoked, totally swollen. They have not

skipped leg day, any of the leg days. Just trying to tip me, bro come at me, bro trying to tip meat, like if you milk them, just like like monster energy drink. I mean you're looking at a male so if you try milking. So the their breed of beef cattle that has been selected for mutations that give the massive muscles. It's called double muscl ng similar to what I talked about with the broiler chicken. The calves

are so the babies the calves are so large. Farmers have to perform cesarean sections on the mother cows to get these monster babies out of the mother. Having a small baby, Oh god, just the baby comes out with huge muscles is like, yes, hello, mother, I desire a mel feed me mouth and protein powder. Mother. It's a little disturbing. It's a real problem. I know. They're also

doing this to pigs. Yeah. I don't know why we would ever give animals that were like farming and eating the ability to you know, we're sets of our own destruction. I gotta say we kind of deserve it. Yeah, we're gonna be like we design these swull guns like cows that also like we give them blade like blades sticking

out of their horns, the ability to breathe, fire something. Yeah, these cows are just it's muscles upon muscles upon muscles, and they look like body You know how body builders much respect to their passion in their hobby, but they do. It is sometimes a little unnerving how many muscles can get on a human body. It's like this. But cows, why, oh my god, look at the butt. It looks uncomfortably swell.

It looks uncomfortably large. And the what's interesting about these is, like I think, to show off how musclely they are, they shave some of the cow, but not all of the cow because they need some sort of like a poodle where they need some of the fur to stay warm. But they just shave the butt and specifics. Right. If you've ever seen the famous flop League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, when he takes the potion turned into mister Hyde, there's a henchman that takes

like a bunch of the potion and he becomes comfortably swollen. Yes, yes, and that's what I'm I'm looking at. Yeah, it is. It is definitely. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of a lot of steroid use that I know can give give that look. But also I think something that happens now is like implants that you know, give you fake like in large or like like injecting um something like silkne into the muscle, which is not I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but yeah it is. It looks it looks like they're

about to explode into meat with cows. Why are we doing that? Because our muscles delicious? What we muscles? Muscles? I mean it's muscles and fat essentially. Okay, So I like the idea of asking a farmer where they're doing and they're like, because I think it's funny. We were bored when we were like, we do we make the cow really like muscular the cows It's like, well, the cows were bored, so we got them lifting set, we

got them a bow flex. They got really into it. Yeah, just a cow hunched over like, uh, they can weigh so the steer can The male cows can weigh just under three thousand pounds. Normal steer away about two thousand, four hundred pounds, So that's significant. So the last animal I want to talk about is the well. It's called the Damascus goat. It's also known as the Aleppo goat, and it is well. So it's it's it's weirdo goats who have been selected for bizarre facial features. So it's

from Syria, Cyprus and Lebanon. And let me get you a good picture. Here's one of these bad boys. Where what are we doing there? What's uh, what's the point of that? I look like a Star Wars creature? They do look like a Star Wars, So I don't. I think. I think that the facial feature, it's specifically bred for these facial features, kind of for the sake of it.

I think they do. They do have a really impressive milk production ability, but I think it was so I think part of it may be just a side effect of breeding them for specific traits like milk production that just caused this crazy face to come about. But I do think that now they're kind of maybe leaning into it. Right. It probably started with someone like, look, if you want the best milk production, that's your goat, and they're just like, yeah,

but what's wrong with it? And it's like nothing. In fact, we're going to make it more that way. I think that's what happened. So it's it started out being like, huh, that's interesting, let's let's lean into this look you gotta, which I mean I think is correct in terms of fashion, like you do have to fully embrace a bold look like a like a bold culture or a statement piece. You really have to go fully on it. On the genetic level for a goat, It's an interesting they could

choice we make as humans are people listening. They could legitimately sell those to Disney to have in a Star War. Yeah that these are star Wars. Yeah, like you'd see it in a Star Wars and you'd be like, oh, that's a cool creature effect. Interestingly, the kids, so they the young goats, do not look so demonic and horrible. Let me let me describe it, because I think we've gone this whole time without actually describing what it looks

like they have. Well what would you say? So they have a huge forehead that it's faces the shape of a square and under bite it looks I seem bigger, but maybe not. The eyes are almost displaced, I guess because of the massive square forehead head, Yeah, like a fish head. Or if you how would you describe, like, what's just imagine an abomination like close your eyes, take a goat but smush its face into the shape of a loaf of bread. Yes, that's it. Yeah, that's what

it looks like. And actually the kids, so the immature goats are quite cute. They have really long ears and adorable little faces, which is good because if they had these bread shaped faces, they probably couldn't nurse, they couldn't drink milk from their mother's It's only until after they hit puberty that they turn into bread face. Yeah, so that's we did that. Why did we do it just, oh right, just for the milk or whatever? Well, no,

I think it was. It started out because we were trying to get milk or meat, and then it just turned into like, wow, look what we can do. Let's do it even more, let's make it even more. So I think we've I think we're just we're learning how to be little angry demigods and we've got to understand this power better. No one's stopping us. No one is stopping us. Though. Hopefully those swoll cows and pigs are gonna realize their power at some point and they're going

to be like, it's our turn, it's our time. Yeah, I'm going to change your face. I'm going to change your faces through through selective breeding, not with my fists. Yeah, that that's our future. We're asking for it, we really are. Congratulations, humans, we have created a cow that can stop us, which

is actually maybe a good thing. I was about to say considering other man made futures we have on the horizon, like Planet of the Cows wouldn't be the worst, right right, Yeah, I mean because while we still have on Earth at least exactly, they probably take over and they'll be like, Okay, we don't need any of this stuff. That's the thing. Why do we need this? Like that's the thing about Planet of the Apes, right, Like, sure they blew up the Statue of liberty, sure they hunt humans for sport,

but the planet is luscious. It's still full of life. So hey, yeah, I do want to amend this though. Cows would be a problem because the burs the methane, right, that is true, the assive protein powder shake fars. That's gotta be heinous. Yeah, that's not good. You don't want to be near that when that goes off. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Dave. Do you wanna you got any animal stories? Get anythink of plug? I can plug some stuff real quick. I have a podcast

network called Gamefully Unemployed. You can go to our Patreon at patreon dot com slash gamefully Unemployed. We have some exclusive podcasts on there. You can check us out on SoundCloud all sorts of stuff. I also um and I believe Katie you also do this. I write for a YouTube show called some More News. It's lovely. It's a lovely little frolic through the world of politics, the polite world of the polite world. If you want to feel real good about politics, feel good, that deep down good

feeling of we're all okay, everything's going to be. This is heavy, heavy irony. Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. You can find us on the internet Creature feature Pod dot com, Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, where it's mostly pictures of my dumb dog. Creature feet Pod on Twitter that's f e A T f e E T is something very different. You can find me online at Kate Golden and of course at pro bird Rites, where I advanced the rights of birds and the eventual Turkey domination

of the world. You'll be You'll be there, King, you're a queen like they'll you'll be. I'd say you'll be top pet I'll be there, token human top pet most favored of pet humans. That's what I'm certain like. If I get tummy rubs and some kibble, I'll be happy. Yeah. I want to do a quick shout out to Castaway Podcast, which is a new podcast that points out all the podcasts that you should be podcast and we're listening to. It's a it's a podcast about podcast. It's actually really great.

That's great. Now, that's great. The host is Laura Whitmore and she had a guest on The Lovely Sarah Pasco. She is a famous brit and she said really nice things about our podcast. Here a Creature feature, and I really appreciate it. And it was really nice to hear in her lovely British accent because it makes it sound so much fancier. The podcast actually is thanks to the Space Classics for their super spectacular song ex Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.

For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.