With tranquil music pouring through the cracks in heavy, antique wooden doors and the shadow of shavasanas visible through the stained glass of a historic Tampa building, you would expect to walk in and find a peaceful morning yoga class in Ybor City. The only thing that’s off is the squawks.

For nearly a decade, chicken rescuer Dylan Breese has been saving injured and abandoned birds around Tampa’s Cigar City. Many of the abandoned or injured birds of Ybor can’t go back onto the streets, so instead, they spend their Sundays at Tampa’s Hotel Haya. Once a month, his most behaved birds get to stretch their talons in the comfort of the boutique stay in the heart of Tampa’s Cigar City during a chicken yoga class.

“When Hotel Haya was just starting out, their director of lifestyle reached out,” Breese says. “I thought about it for about two minutes. That was all it took, and I was sold.”

The class takes place in various hotel ballrooms, including the Las Novedades event space—the former home of Tampa’s first Spanish restaurant, which opened in 1890. Some weekends, you can find beautiful brides and grooms celebrating holy matrimony; others, you can find a flock of misfit birds basking in sunlight filtered through the room’s art deco-stained glass, falling asleep to serene music and precariously perching under tree poses.

And to address the 800-pound chicken in the room, yes, they do wear diapers. “I was already aware of a vendor on Etsy who sells chicken diapers,” Breese says. “So I was like, ‘All right, yeah, we can do this.’”

Since the first chicken yoga session back in 2021, it’s been a hit every month. “It was perfect,” Breese recalls. “The birds didn’t climb on people, but they weaved in and out of the mats. Everyone got to pick them up, because throughout their treatment, they’re handled a lot. So they become comfortable with people. And it’s just one of the greatest, most heartwarming little events that we do, because it really brightens these people’s day.”

Tickets for the event are $12 per person, all proceeds go towards Breese’s chicken rescue, Ybor Misfits, and it’s also great exercise hosted by a local yoga studio. “It’s a regular class,” Breese says. “If a chicken isn’t walking in front of you, you might not even know you’re in chicken yoga.”

Although the bird’s DNA can’t escape it, Breese’s yoga-loving birds seem blissfully unaware of the history under their feet and revel in the opportunity to sit in a warm lap during post-class photo ops. At Hotel Haya, more than a trip to the pool or a stop at the hotel’s quaint (and chicken-themed) cafe are itinerary requisites. Now, that list has grown to include the monthly yoga event. Bring a mat, and the birds will bring their diapers. “Sometimes people will pick them up and put them on themselves, and they fall asleep on people,” Breese says. “And there’s nothing that makes you fall in love with an animal faster than them falling asleep on you.”

To learn about the plights and perils of Florida’s wild poultry, click here.