Factory farmed hens, or battery hens, suffer terrible conditions when they spend most, if not all, of their lives living in tiny cages, so if they are one of the lucky ones to ever make it out alive, they lack feathers needed to keep them warm. Acclimating to the cold, crisp weather of fall and winter is tough. But one woman in Cornwall, England has stepped up to help her feathered and not-so-feathered friends.
Nicole Congdon, 25, of Falmouth, has about 60 chickens, 30 from the battery farms. She felt so bad for the chickens trying to keep warm that she has started to knit them wooly sweaters to cover the areas most affected. The brightly colored sweaters resemble a tank top style to fit over the chicken's wings easily.
"It's important to make people aware of the poor conditions the hens live in and the fact that they have no feathers when they are retired," Congdon told Mashable. "The tank tops are also something really different that provide some fun for the chickens. They keep them warm and makes the chickens easy to identify."
Nicole and her mother, Ann, have been receiving requests from all over the world for a chicken sweater, as people love this idea. For a donation, Nicole will send a chicken sweater in a win-win plan that keeps the chickens warm and has the donations go to an AIDS orphanage charity in South Africa.
"We've been knitting chicken jumpers for the last six months," says Nicole. "We are doing it for the ex-battery hens for when they come out of their poor conditions for them to put on in the cold weather.
"I've also thought about doing it for my own chickens, and the chickens absolutely love them," Nicole added, according to the Western Morning News. "There's not a problem with them actually putting the jumpers on, they just stand there and they do everything they should be doing - as a chicken would."
