It’s called a ‘chicken saddle’.
If it's mating season and your rooster has been a bit more peppy than usual, or if you have a prized lobster-tailed Cubalaya to be shown at the county fair next month, you might need one.
Chicken saddles are usually bits of fabric that strap to the backs of chickens to protect their feathers.
Local poultry enthusiast Jordan Winter spoke about her ‘chicken saddles’ after the Sustain Algoma Algoma event in Desbarats over the weekend.
Winter is part of the all-youth run Youth Algoma Poultry Association, a group she started five years ago after moving out to Desbarats from the Sault.
Jordan Winters (left) and Hailey Callahan (right) of the Youth Algoma Poultry Association at Winter's family farm - Raven Hill Farms. Jeff Klassen/SooTodayThe group is mostly made up of those that are interested in raising different breeds of poultry.
Their meetings are divided up into two age groups and the older youth – high schoolers – organize workshops and activities for the younger ones.
They usually talk about raising different breeds of chickens and how to properly present them at professional poultry shows.
Most members of the group also raise birds themselves and when they all had the common problem of roosters clawing out the feathers on the backs of their hens, they found the 'chicken saddle’ solution online.
The youth group then experimented with pattern making and, once they found some good solutions, those with sewing experience in the group made them for the others.
This spring, Winters’ rooster ‘Hemmy’ was quite busy at her family's Raven Hill Farm.
On Saturday, three of her hens — all of them of the maran breed — had chicken saddles on them.
‘The roosters mount the hens a lot because... they are roosters and... that’s what they do. That can be hard on the hen’s feathers so we put chicken saddles or hen saddles on them to allow the feathers to grow back,” she said.
The chicken saddles also help protect birds before a show or after an injury.
If a chicken bleeds, said Winters, the others will be attracted to the red and start pecking at it.
Winters said large-scale farms usually don’t use the chicken saddles but she will often see them utilized by smaller farmers.
Winters is especially vigilant about keeping her birds healthy just because she loves them so much.
“Everybody should hug a chicken every day... People think 'oh chickens are smelly, they are gross, they don’t have personalities,' but they are smarter than dogs and they make amazing pets, and they’re just fun to hug,” she said.