Alright, I will admit it. The first time I saw a picture of chickens wearing sweaters, my reaction was awwwwww that’s so cute. Immediately followed by, but why? Well I did some research and it turns out that these homemade chicken sweaters actually serve a purpose.

Apparently when the cold weather creeps in, chickens begin to molt others more than others. Any exposed skin can be injured when other chickens peck the affected ones. Also when the weather gets extremely cold, like this year the molted chicken will be exposed to extreme cold and weather without its feathers.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• double knitting yarn (100g makes approximately 3 jumpers)
• 2 buttons or 10cm Velcro
• 1 pair of number 8 (4mm) knitting needles
• 4mm crochet hook
• Knitted in stocking stitch with garter stitch borders

I found two free chicken sweater patterns online. One of them requires that you crotchet the neck, if you can not or prefer to just knit then you can use the other pattern which Nancy adopted to bypass crocheting the necks. Protect your molting your girls with these sweaters, they may look ridiculously cute, but you can save their little lives.

You can follow the step by step instructions on the Hen Cam site, here…

Free Chicken Sweater Patterns

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