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Chicken Saddles and Nesting Box Curtains?

Before I got the chickens I did a lot of Googling and as with many Google searches you come across some weird things. Chicken saddles and nesting box curtains sounded kinda weird…especially the chicken saddles!

Nesting box curtains are just what they sound like, curtains that go over the front of your nesting boxes. Sure they’re cute but do they serve a purpose other than cuteness? I’m not going to spend time decorating my chicken coop when I don’t even have baseboards in my house!

Still no baseboards...

Still no baseboards…

A chicken saddle is for protecting a hen’s back from an enthusiastic but not very adept rooster. Basically a piece of fabric that goes over her back with elastic that fits around her wings to hold it on so that her back is protected from big, gnarly rooster feet.

Big, gnarly, rooster feet.

Big, gnarly, rooster feet.

 

 

 

 

 

Neither of these items made it on my chicken raising necessities list. No cutesy curtains and I wasn’t going to have any roosters. As usual, things have changed since I made my chicken raising necessities list.

I have two roosters who are still pretty young and trying to establish themselves in the flock of twenty six girls. Strider and Legolas are sometimes too aggressive in their pursuit and once they do woo the girl they are rather inept. I can frequently be heard telling Strider, “just standing on her back isn’t going to get the job done”. Poor Legolas…once his lady of choice stops for him he spends so much time walking around her in circles that she gets up and leaves. They are showing improvement but some of the girls are still paying the price for their clumsiness.A sundress that didn’t fit Rachel and some jeans that don’t fit me and the ladies get a little relief until the boys have a little more finesse!

Banshee's back, poor girl.

Banshee’s back, poor girl.

Chicken saddle to the rescue!

Very cooperative model!

Very cooperative model!

Gwen sportin' a new saddle.

Gwen sportin’ a new saddle.

Turns out nesting box curtains do have a purpose other than cuteness. Chickens like a little privacy when working on that egg! In the original coop the nesting boxes were a couple of feet off the ground but when we moved to the new coop we put the nesting boxes on the floor. When they were in the original coop eggs were always in the boxes but after the move to the new coop…well, I have found eggs all over!

Then I realized that the nesting boxes were now at eye level…for chickens, which meant when a hen was in the box there wasn’t much privacy for her to do her thing. I decided to put up some temporary curtains over half of the boxes to see if it would help.

Temporary curtains

Temporary curtains.

It didn’t take long and they would only lay in the boxes behind the curtains! Problem solved, but my temporary curtains were ugly and since these were now a necessity…well, they might as well be cute too!

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So yeah, I spent the snowy week sewing clothes and drapes for my chickens. What? I’ve done weirder things…okay, maybe not.

Comments

  1. Maybe if Robert had some chicken soup it would give him the strength to fix your baseboards.

  2. Heidi Wilbanks says:

    Ha. Ha. Ha. funny man 😛 Besides, the baseboards are my job!

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