hen and rooster, help

[TherryChicken]

I would love to make some, but I don't know how

 

[CMV]

I make mine a little differently than the ones shown around this site. I take my hideous piece of fleece and cut out a rectangle that is as long the the bird from shoulders to base of tail, and as wide as I think I will need it. Most of my saddles are to cover injuries and not to cover roo damage, so I eyeball the width and guess what i will need to cover the damage. You are going to need to cut wing holes on one end and a tail slit on the other. Measure the width between your birds wings, at the shoulders, and then take off an inch. That is how far apart your wing holes need to be. Cut your holes (or small slits, you can always cut out more if you need to but you can't add cloth if you have cut the holes too big) then measure back on the bird from the wing holes to the base of the tail. Take an inch off that measurement. That is where you cut your tail slit. The saddle should fit quite snugly and not slip or sag when it is on the bird. I then like to modify the rectangular shape into a V-shape, with the widest part of the V at the shoulders and the tail slit at the bottom of the V. The tail slit should have just enough fabric to fit the tail through without the saddle hanging down in front of the vent. Once you have the fit right, you can cut the wing openings bigger as needed, but the tail slit needs to be kept pretty small- just big enough to fit all the tail feathers through. It takes a couple tries to get the fit right the first time you make a saddle, but once to do it a few times you can whip them out in no time. Just remember that birds are smaller than we often give them credit for. We see all the feathers and assume they are larger than they really are. This is why you take an inch off your measurements (as well as to allow for some stretching of the fleece). And you can add ties to this design under the belly should you need to.

 

[TherryChicken]

Thanks