Using chicken diapers is a personal choice but we believe in giving chickens foraging freedom so letting them have the run of the house was important to us so diapers were essential.
I used diapers on all my new juveniles during quarantine before introducing them outdoors to the main flock.
My Silkie's butt after 3 months of diapers was sparse on feathers. With extra fluffy butts like Silkies, Ameraucanas, EEs, etc, the diapers seem to wear down the fluffy butt feathers.
My Leghorn only wore her diaper for 2 weeks so there was no feather damage and she was not a particularly fluffy breed.
My Ameraucana absolutely refused to move/walk in her diaper and would just sulk sitting down all day. She would not cooperate so after a week of trying we stopped using them on her. Amers and EEs are sweet human friendly birds but they definitely have a mind of their own - they are independent thinkers and want to figure things out for themselves without our assistance so forcing our Amer to wear a diaper was not in the cards - she recognized diapers were a foreign practice for birds. As an adult she became the backyard sentinel of the flock - wary, predator-savvy, alert, jittery, jumpy, spooky and altogether kooky, loveable, and non-combative in temperament. This breed is not your typical average heritage temperament - this breed is incredibly human friendly especially if handled from chickhood and are very accepting of orphaned chicks or injured birds which is not typical of most other breeds, they are kind to flockmates and non-combative, they are quick to move and jumpy about noises and/or predators - ours will chase out stray cats from the yard! I would not recommend using diapers on this breed.
It's important to watch the consistency of poops in the diaper. If there are liquidy poops then change the diaper pouch so the skin doesn't get irritated from the moisture. Sometimes we would have to wash and blowdry the butt area so there wouldn't be any irritation. Solid poops are good for dropping down low in the pouch and away from the skin and won't need changing. I have never used diapers continuously for more than 3 months and it was on a Silkie and I didn't like what it did to the butt feathers so I stopped using them. It was time to integrate the Silkie into the main flock by then. I can't testify to using diapers longer than 3 months but I think they would work for longer periods on a hard-feathered breed better than a fluffier breed.
Our Silkie once layed an egg in her pouch and walked around without breaking it.
