Some years ago I read that, in the U.S., chickens were being bred without feathers so that they would put a larger fraction of their feed into producing meat. As a result, they would have smooth skin instead of the little bumps people are used to, and market research was done to see if that was acceptable. IIRC, it turned out that the naked chickens had to be kept in an exquisitely temperature-controlled environment to keep them from catching cold, and the expense of doing so was greater than that of allowing them to grow feathers.