You might call them chickens in sheep's clothing. Two backyard birds in Guelph are wearing the latest in poultry fashion to help keep out the winter chills.
It's the first snowfall for Shaggy and Princess, and while feathers would normally be enough to keep them warm, unfortunately they were plucked bare by some bored coop-mates.
Now their ‘mother hen' has come to the rescue, creating lovingly handmade sweaters to help get them through the winter.
Owner Krystyna Czernicki says her other two chickens, Beauty and the aptly-named Pecky, were the peckers, while Shaggy and Princess were the peckees.
When her friend and sometimes 'chicken-sitter' Diana Franco saw what happened she says "The first think I thought was these poor chickens have no feathers on their butts!"
Franco decided the solution was a pair of chicken sweaters, so Czernicki set to work with her sewing machine.
Czernicki says "There's a button here holding it on and Velcro, because they can undo Velcro."
After six weeks of wearing them, they seem to working, and the missing feathers are starting to grow back to cover what was a nearly naked area.
But the sweaters aren't coming off any time soon because they seem to be preventing the plucking problem, Czernicki says.
"[They're] staying on because it's an addiction and these feathers can be gone inside an hour."
The next step, according to Czernicki, may be leg warmers and a hat, since Princess has been suffering from a cold head and cold legs.
"I think they're just gorgeous, as I said, put it on YouTube who knows how many hits she'll get and a little business going too," Franco says.
The sweaters are carefully planned and handmade, and while Czernicki initially thought the idea was a little bird-brained, she now says "If it's going to save the chicken from the stew, I think it's a good idea."
She's raised chickens for most of her life, and now she's already thinking about summer sweaters to protect the chickens from plucking, and sunburn.
"If I was a chicken, I'd want Krys as my mother hen," Franco says.
