The Small Tale of the Moody Broody

Moody Broody after I counted her eggs today.

Meet my Moody Broody.  Saturday June 9th my little hen decided she was going to be a mama.  I wasn't sure she was in it for the long haul so I took most of her eggs away and left her with only 4.  The next morning she was still sitting, so I added 10 more for a grand total of 14.  I marked all of her eggs with a colored pencil to keep track of witch eggs were hers.  The other hens decided that they would take over her nest.  It doesn't seem to bother her, but it did make me mad.  I just knew that one of her eggs would be broken.  Of course on Monday one of her eggs was broken, and I was broken hearted.  One of Moody Broodie's babies was killed.  I tried to move her nest, I took both her and her eggs and placed them in the dog house with straw.  She was not impressed and would not set.  I moved the dog house into her old run so she could be with her pen mates, well that didn't work.  I had no choice but to put her back in one of the nesting boxes.  I had to do something.  Then it occurred to me, I've seen nesting box curtains made by The Chicken Chick .  They didn't need to be fancy or fabric, just functional.  I needed to keep her out of site so the other hen's wouldn't lay their eggs with her.  Tuesday (yesterday) I figured it out, a feed bag would solve my problem.  I cut the back off of a feed bag cut it in half, and stapled it to the nesting box Moody Broody was using.  Drum Roll please.......... this afternoon when I went to count Moody Broodie's eggs there were only 13!  No extra eggs.  This is such a simple fix.  I hope you had fun with my story.  I'll keep you updated on Moody Broodie's hatch.  They are due July 1st!  Just in time to help us celebrate Independence Day. 

Here is the nesting box curtain.  Moody Broody is behind it happily setting on her eggs.