Posted on 01/16/2002 2:06:49 AM PST by Arkle
DAMMAM, 16 January A four-legged chicken produced at a poultry farm in Dammam has created a sensation here, and the manager on whose farm it hatched has received many offers from potential buyers.
The deputy general manager of Afnan Poultry Farm, Abdul Aziz Khan, brought the freak chicken to the Arab News bureau in Dammam. He said that the chicken was now 40 days old and weighed 1,200 grams.
Apparently, the chicken lives a normal life. While it walks with its two front legs only, when running it uses all four.
Khan said that the fact the chicken had four legs was noticed only few weeks ago, when workers at the poultry farm were loading chickens for the market. He decided to spare the chicken because of its uniqueness.
"Never before have I seen a chicken with four legs," he said. He added that he has already received hundreds of offers for the chicken. "A trader from Riyadh has offered SR25,000 for it," he claimed. However, he is biding his time, convinced that higher bids will come in.
Khan said that he is also trying to contact research organizations around the world, especially in the United States, so they can examine the chicken.
Khan stated that there are more chickens with unusual physical attributes at his farm, but because they are still young and fragile he is unable to put them on display to substantiate the claim. However, he assured Arab News that once they mature he will indeed bring them to our office here.
The greatest flaw of evolution theory is that mutations are not always an "advance", and that mutations, more times than not, doom a animal because it can't keep up with the rest of the flock, or can't reproduce or something along those lines.
Evolution is based on mutant cells- and the greatest success of cell mutations in history is cancer- some advancement eh?

"Poultry farmer Daniel Sahadeo holds up a four-legged chicken that he has on his farm. The chicken which is 63 days old is in good health and it is the first time that Sahadeo, who is the owner of over 20,000 hatchlings, has seen such a chicken."
I'd suggest Colonel Sanders is the best man to speak to.
Take the money and run you Ring Ding®
Im waiting for four breasts myself.....paging Ms. Crawford

Tartar sauce anyone?
Perhaps the chicken hails from the Arkansas Quarter of Dammam? Can't tell from the photo -- is it a Cornish Rock, or a Little Rock?
I will do so, and forward.....as soon as I lay hands on them
This is making for a gripping story
Not necessarily. You obviously do not understand genetics, let alone evolution. There is only a percentage of a chance that the four legs will make it into the next generation (is the gene dominant or recessive? Do four legs aid in the chicken's survival, or do they hinder it? etc...). Mutations do not have to "advance" anything. If the mutation gives the critter a leg up in its particular ecological niche that mutation will most likely eventually spread to the entire breeding population. If the mutation is detrimental, odds are the critter won't have a leg to stand on when it comes to surviving until its old enough to breed.
The greatest flaw of evolution theory is that mutations are not always an "advance", and that mutations, more times than not, doom a animal because it can't keep up with the rest of the flock, or can't reproduce or something along those lines.
Exactly. Every so often, though, a mutation comes along that aids in survival. And the biosphere of Earth has had a lot of time to experiment.
Evolution is based on mutant cells- and the greatest success of cell mutations in history is cancer- some advancement eh?
Nope. Evolution is based upon mutations in the genome, not in cells.
I like these mutant body part stories, very titilating
You don't have to believe in evolution to know that your critique of it is silly.
Everyone admits that the vast majority of random mutations are either negative or inconsequential. Its only those mutations that give a creature a reproductive advantage(including living long enough to reproduce) that could be called an advance.
And a chicken needs two extra legs about as much and I do, which is to say not at all. Then again, since humans are making all the reproductive decisions for chickens these days the only real reproductive advantage for them is being what humans want. If someone really likes drumsticks they might decide that a four-legged chicken ain't such a bad thing.
And, its a little off point but there is no reason to think this is a new mutation, it could just as easily be a rare recessive trait OR it could have no genetic origin at all, it could simply be a case of aberrant cell division or fetus development for example he may have come from a double yoked egg and he might have absorbed his twin(in which case he could father perfectly normal offspring).
That will buy a lot of STEAK....
In a few million years, his progeny will be teaching evolution at some prestigious university.
LOL! Calling Medved! (on second thought, naaaah.)
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