The rainbow pattern is particularly fetching but the latest in agricultural fashion can also be ordered in the woodland pattern, brown, olive, forest green, teal, grey, black, white and several other attractive colours.
The garment, in cotton or synthetic knit, fits over the shoulders and attaches with a Velcro strip between the shoulder blades. The pouch apparatus sweeps snugly under the posterior.
Voila! Your chicken is now wearing a diaper.
I didn’t believe it either, at first. But it turns out there are several entrepreneurs selling chicken diapers to service the burgeoning urban backyard chicken flock crowd and the chickens-as-house-pets segment.
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The buyers are people who want to get closer to the source of their food and be guaranteed it is “natural,” but have discovered that raising food, be it meat or eggs, isn’t a tidy process.
Good for them, but allow me to point out that there’s nothing natural about a chicken wearing a diaper. Surely this is evidence that we, as a species, have crossed a rubicon in our approach to livestock.
Let’s put philosophy aside for the moment and examine practicalities.
As you’ve surmised, the posterior pouch of the chicken diaper is designed for the same purpose as all diapers. Because the fit relies on stiffness of the tail feathers, they are best worn by mature chickens, according to website sources.
One manufacturer recommends a diaper change every two to three hours. That’s more work than most pet owners want, for those who view the chicken as a pet, but suggested frequency might be a sales ploy.
Then there’s the matter of orifice. A diaper that catches one substance will also catch another. Eggs might be well coated before the next diaper change rolls around.
That seems less sanitary than what chickens generally manage when left to their own devices. It’s also contrary to the purported food safety purpose of raising a backyard flock, but hey, we’re talking chicken diapers here. We’re outside any norms.
You will note that many of the available diaper colours share the palette of the material they are primarily designed to catch, thus avoiding any aesthetically troubling clashes.
On that note, let us end – and contemplate what might come next in urban livestock production.
