Chicken Saddles

Road Runner, the nice rooster we kept, has been riding the hens too hard so we got them some chicken saddles.

See how he’s tearing up their backs and shredding their feathers?

The answer to that was to get the girls some chicken saddles, of course.

A chicken saddle is just a piece of cloth that covers the hen’s back. To put them on, you just slip the elastic bands around their wings and over their shoulders.

It was pretty easy to get the saddles on the two Legbar hens but, we needed a bit of drama, so the hen we put the green saddle on started attacking the one with the purple spirals. We tried changing it to the reverse side, which is plain black fabric but there was enough purple showing that the twit kept beating up the sweetie. So, we swapped saddles and put the purple spirals on the one, who we now call Pecky, and no more drama. Apparently she was jealous and wanted the purple swirls. At least now we can tell the difference between the two.

Then, we put one on Eager (the broody hen). She was not impressed and started pecking at the wing straps and flinging herself on the ground to try to get it off. We relented and removed it. We’ll work on her in stages until it’s acceptable attire.

Road Runner has chewed off much of Eager’s comb so I guess I’ll have to get chicken bonnets next.

What do you think?