Fashionable Chicken Pets Wear Diapers and Colorful Outfits

Statistics show a growing number of American families are replacing cats and dogs with chicken as household pets, so I guess it’s no wonder we’re starting to see things like chicken outfits, diapers and saddles being sold online.

Julie Baker is the owner of Pampered Chickens, an online business that sells a variety of accessories for pet chickens. She got the idea for bird diapers when her feathered friends started spending less time in the backyard and more time inside the house. They were making a mess, so she tried sewing chicken-sized cloth diapers, added some buttons and strapped them on the birds. It worked like a charm, and before long the idea turned into a business. These days Julie sells between 50 and 100 chicken diapers, as well fashionable outfits and protective saddles to urban hen owners across the United States. “Saddles are almost more useful than the diaper, quite frankly,” Baker told The Salt. “A rooster isn’t particularly kind to a hen when they mate. He grabs her by the back and pulls her feathers out. The hen ends up with a completely bare back. It gets raw and bleeds a little bit.” Her family has been a part of the poultry show community for a long time, and when friends saw her pets’ colorful garments, they started asking where she got them. before she new it, orders started rolling in.

Chicken-outfit

Photo: Pampered Chickens

But Pampered Chickens is not the only store that’s making a killing with trendy chicken fashion. MyPetChicken.com is a multi-million dollar business that offers all the necessary supplies a pet chicken owner could ever need, from the actual chickens, to chicken caviar and of course, diapers. Ryan Slabaugh, editor of chicken-themed magazine Backayrd Poultry, believes at least half of the tens of thousands of subscribers keep hens around for companionship rather than for agricultural purposes, which sort of justifies their willingness to spend serious money on diapers and clothing.

chicken-diaper

 Photo: My Pet Chicken

Chicken-outfit2

 

Photo: Pampered Chickens

 

Source: NPR

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