“Fine feathered friend” is said of birds (often chickens). “Fine feathered “friends’” was printed in the Lancaster (Lancashire, UK) Gazette on June 28, 1873.  “Fine-feathered friends” was printed in The Examiner (San Francisco, CA) on February 8, 1891.
   
A person can also be jocularly referred to as a “fine feathered friend.”
 
 
28 June 1873, Lancaster (Lancashire, UK) Gazette, “Country Talk,” pg. 10, col. 3:
But come down from finery an’ wear the poor man’s coat, an’ then your fine feathered “friends” ‘ull not reconise you ...
 
8 February 1891, The Examiner (San Francisco, CA), “Life in the Shadow,” pg. 13, col. 5:
He disliked the claret on his extension table, he was silent in the presence of Mrs. Judge Rooney and the fine-feathered friends who were brought to it.
 
20 August 1898, Harper’s Bazaar (New York, NY), pg. 724, col. 4:
But spite of all my love for these fine feathered friends of man,
The birds I’ve loved the most of all since I this life began, ...
(The White-winged Dove of Peace.—ed.)
     
9 January 1907. The Evening Journal (Wilmington, DE), pg. 1, col. 4:
BLUE RIBBONS FOR PROUD BIRDS
(...)
FINE FEATHERED FRIENDS
  ‘
9 March 1922, Beattie (KS) Eagle, “Poultry pays” (poem), pg. 8, col. 3:
Our fine feathered friends with their gobble and crow ...
 
2 November 1923, Boston (MA) Herald, “Bag Limits,” pg. 22, col. 1:
Bob-white is a fine feathered friend of the farmer and the cotton grower.
   
6 October 1934, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “Tigers Stretch Ligaments, Tear Tendons, Bow Knees And Flatten Arches Trying to Hit Daffy’s Pitching” (United News), pg. 14, col. 4:
“Now my fine feathered friend, you try and hit one when it counts.”
(Said by baseball pitcher Paul “Daffy” Dean.—ed.)
 
11 October 1934, Austin (TX) Statesman, “Paul Jones’ Tale Proves It Pays To be Educated” by Weldon Hart, pg. 9, col. 3:
THIS, my fine feathered friends, is to be a success story—the biography of a boy who worked hard and grew up and made good and all that, don’t you know.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
You’re a sweetheart : fox trot ; My fine-feathered friend : fox trot
Author: Woody Herman; Jimmy McHugh; Harold Adamson
Publisher: U.S.A. : Decca, [1937]
Edition/Format:   Music : 78 rpm : English
 
OCLC WorldCat record
My fine feathered friend
Author: Jimmy McHugh; Harold Adamson
Publisher: New York : Universal Music Corporation, ©1937.
Edition/Format:   Musical score : English
 
Wikipedia: Fine Fathered Friend
Fine Feathered Friend is a 1942 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 8th Tom and Jerry short released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was animated by Pete Burness, Kenneth Muse, Jack Zander and George Gordon. The animators of the cartoon were not credited, But William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are credited.
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Fine feathered friend
Author: Jamila Gavin; Dan Williams
Publisher: New York : Crabtree Pub., 2003.
Series: Yellow bananas.
Edition/Format:   Print book : Fiction : Primary school : English
Summary:
In India, Raju is angry about spending two months on his aunt and uncle’s farm while his family attends a wedding in England, but things looks much brighter after he becomes mother to a newly-hatched chick.