Chicken diapers are a great way of keeping your birds indoors without having to worry about the mess they’ll make. Buying a diaper is good but making one might be even better and cheaper.
If someone saw you putting a diaper on a chicken 50 or 70 years ago, they would have concluded that you were some sort of eccentric. Thankfully, we don’t live in those years anymore and the idea of putting diapers on a chicken isn’t so strange today.
Chicken diapers may not be a strange idea, but they are still new so getting one may be challenging. Some creative individuals are already cashing in on this rising need by selling their handmade chicken diapers on platforms such as Amazon and Etsy.
However, the cost for one of these diapers isn’t exactly cheap and you’ll probably need more than one even for just one chicken.
Luckily, there are some chicken diapers DIY solutions available for you to try out today. We’ve gone through the trouble of compiling a few DIY diapers you can try plus information you need to know when making homemade diapers for your feathered companions.
What Makes a Good DIY Diaper?
There are quite a few ideas for DIY chicken diapers out there. Some of these ideas are good, but some of them are not so good and likely not to work well on your birds.
For the best results, when making a DIY chicken diaper, pay attention to the following features.
- Make the pouch big enough: If the pouch for poop is small and too close to the bird, it will create an unsanitary situation around the chicken’s vent. A bigger pouch on the DIY chicken diaper will help keep the poop away from your chicken’s body.
- Make it easy to clean: If you wish to have a DIY chicken diaper that you can reuse, make sure it’s easy to clean. Your chicken will need several diapers in a day and the harder they are to clean, the more annoying the work will be.
- Make it adjustable: If you make your DIY chicken diaper adjustable, it can be used on different-sized birds with minimal difficulty.
- Waterproof: Use a waterproof or absorbent material for your DIY chicken diaper to prevent leaks. Leaks can cause a bigger mess than a chicken without a diaper.
- Make it comfortable: The design and material of your DIY diaper should make it comfortable for the chicken.
- Make it easy to use: Use features like Velcro and expandable straps to make the DIY diaper easy to put on and take off your chicken.
Why You Should Go with Chicken Diapers DIY Solutions
Buying a diaper may seem like the easier solution, but easier often doesn’t mean better. A DIY diaper can have several advantages over something you buy such as:
- Lower cost: DIY diapers can be made from items that are cheaper to acquire or items around the house that are no longer in use. These cost savings can be significant if you have many chickens, or you intend to keep your chickens in the house for long.
- Better fitting: If you buy your chicken diapers from someone else, their design may not be the best fit for your chicken. Owners have already mentioned that getting diapers that fit their chickens perfectly is challenging.
- No time wasted: If you have to get your chicken in the house today, you won’t have the time to wait for the diapers you bought online to be delivered. A DIY solution can be the quick fix you need.
- Better look: If you put in a bit of effort, your DIY chicken diapers may end up looking much better than anything you could buy right now.
Apart from the advantages above, it’s also possible that a DIY diaper for your chickens will be your only option. These products are still not available in certain parts of the world.
5 DIY Chicken Diaper Ideas to Try Out
1. The Minimal Effort Disposable Mask Diaper by Lee McGrath
When you need a quick solution in an emergency, a disposable mask can be the DIY chicken diaper you need. Many of us still have a few or a whole box of these diapers from 2020 and you can also get them cheaply at your local drug store.
The mask can be used as a diaper for your chickens with no alterations. The straps of the mask are wrapped around the wings and the mask part goes around the back of the bird.
Adjust the mask to ensure it will catch any poop that falls out and that’s it. Removing the used diaper is just as easy and you don’t have to worry about cleaning it.
This is a good one-off solution but isn’t ideal because:
- It’s not an environmentally friendly solution since the diapers are single-use.
- This DIY diaper may not fit well if your chicken is not a certain size.
- The diaper isn’t secured around the tail and may slip down if it gets too heavy.
2. The Extra Effort Disposable Mask Diaper by Jueyue
There is more than one way to use a disposable mask to make a diaper for your chickens. This second method is not as quick or easy, but the result is better and can be customized to fit chickens of different sizes.
To make this diaper, you’ll have to cut off the strap and cut the mask into two pieces. This will yield two sections, and each is folded and sawn into a pouch.
The straps are sawn back onto the pouches in lengths and patterns that will allow them to be securely but comfortably attached to your chickens. Each mask yields two disposable diapers.
The benefits of this DIY diaper over the first are:
- It can fit smaller chickens and chicks.
- The straps are reattached in a way that makes the diaper less likely to slip off the bird.
- The diaper looks better on the chickens.
- You get two diapers from each mask.
The downsides of this DIY diaper are that they’ll still be single-use, probably won’t work well on big birds, and they require you to do some sewing.
3. The Sock Diaper by Missy Salisbury
We all have a few old socks somewhere in our bedrooms. These can be fashioned to make washable DIY diapers for your chickens.
The main challenge may be choosing the right size sock to ensure a comfortable fit. Once you have a sock that is likely to fit well, you’ll need to make several cuts to create the straps that will go around the wings and the pouch that will collect the poop.
This is well demonstrated in the video below.
Assuming the sock is made from a material that is stretchable enough, you’ll get a diaper that can securely and comfortably fit on your chicken. The main advantage of this DIY chicken diaper are:
- The diaper can be washed and reused.
- Making this diaper is quick and only requires a sock and a pair of scissors.
- You can pick different size socks for different size birds.
The main drawback of this DIY diaper is it’ll probably not be waterproof. Socks are usually made to be breathable which means they can leak especially if your chicken’s poop has a lot of liquid in it.
4. The Original Tailored Diaper by Chickenmom
If you’re willing to put in a little extra work, the best DIY chicken diaper will be one that is tailored to fit your birds.
These diapers are not new, and the tutorial below was posted 15+ years ago. What is great about these diapers and why they are still relevant is that you get a result that is perfectly tailored for your chickens, reusable, and can look as interesting as you’d like it to.
The process of making this diaper starts by measuring the chicken to ensure the diaper will fit perfectly. You’ll have to cut the material you use to the appropriate size and shape, and you’ll have to do some sewing to attach the Velcro and get good edges around the diaper.
There are different ways of altering the design and you can even add quirky features to make your birds look extra fabulous in their diapers. Disposable paper towels are added to the poop pouch to make cleaning easier.
This DIY chicken diaper is superior because:
- It’ll fit your chicken perfectly since it’s cut to size.
- Only the paper towel inside the poop pouch needs to be disposed of. The rest of the diaper can be easily washed and reused.
- You can customize the look in many ways.
- The diaper can be designed to be easy to take off and put on your chicken.
The main drawback of this approach is that it requires a lot of work, and the result may not look as good if your sewing skills are minimal. The diaper may also not be 100% leak-proof.
5. The Tailored Diaper 2.0 by Dayseykins
The approach to making this diaper is almost identical to the approach used on the original tailored diaper. The one important difference is the addition of a lining on the inside of the diaper to prevent leaks.
This lining ensures that in addition to the benefits of the original tailored diaper, you’ll also not have to worry about paper towels or some other method of preventing leaks. Just like the original, this design still requires that you have some sewing skills.
Chicken Diapers DIY Solutions to Avoid
Some misguided owners have tried to use plastic bags as quick DIY diapers for their chickens, but using this as a diaper is a bad idea for several reasons.
Although this material is sure to be waterproof, as seen in the video, they are loose fitting and will easily get caught on something. There’s also the chance that the loose plastic bag will be moved about and end up over the chicken’s head, suffocating it.
Plastic bags are also easily pierced or ripped. Any number of items in your house or another chicken’s claws will rip through this diaper easily.
Even as you try to keep your chicken from making a mess inside your house, you should avoid using materials that pose a hazard to your feathered friends.
Best Practices When Using DIY Chicken Diapers
Good practices when using DIY chicken diapers include:
- Make enough DIY diapers to enable you to change them every 3 to 4 hours. Chickens poop many times in a day and the diapers can get full quickly.
- Clean the area around the vent of the chicken every day as some poop may stick to the feathers there. Giving your DIY diapers a bigger poop pouch will help to prevent this.
- Don’t keep your chickens in diapers 24 hours a day. At the very least, you should take the diaper off at night.
- Look out for any signs of discomfort and irritation. You should switch to a different design, size, or material for your DIY chicken diapers if you notice these.
Also Read:
Modern Problems Require Modern DIY Solutions
There are quick and easy solutions and solutions that require a bit more time. As always, the more time and effort you put into your DIY chicken diapers the better the result will look and fit on your birds.
