This afternoon as I was checking on my chickens, I looked down toward the end of the pen and there was a fuzzy black and white object.  I immediately recognized it as a skunk and ran back to the house for my camera and my husband.  I wanted to shoot a picture and I wanted my husband to shoot the skunk.  Husbands are good for things like this.  

After we tied the dog up to the house (because the dog gets in the middle of the action) we headed back up the hill.   As my husband entered the pen, he didn't know I was going to take this picture so he didn't wait for me to focus.  Did he get the skunk?  You bet, and on first shot!  He was using a 10/22.  The chicken standing in the picture was a bit rattled when the gun went off so she quickly scampered out of sight and all the hens and the rooster were quite upset about it too as there was much cackling after the shot.  In fact those who were already perched for the night came down and out to see what all the commotion was about.  Now after the shot, I probably do not need to tell you what happened next.  The stench that followed had the ability to curl your nose hairs.  My husband got a shovel and carried the skunk off.  In the house now, we can still smell the critter.

Skunks may kill and eat domestic poultry and their eggs. They pose only a little threat to adult birds, but prize eggs as a tasty treat and will often break up a nest when the opportunity avails itself.  
They normally do not climb fences to get poultry. If skunks gain access, they will normally feed on the eggs and occasionally kill one or two fowl. Many times the skunk will remove the head from the chicken to drink the blood. Eggs usually are opened on one end with the end crushed inward. 
Source:  http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/skunk-chicken-predators-how-to-protect-your-chickens-from-skunks

After watching my hens sit on their nests for many days, I decided that I needed to discourage them from this continued practice.  My egg production had dropped due to the fact that about 8 hens decided to go broody and when this happens they do not lay any more eggs.  I thought that after about three weeks they would give up when no eggs hatched (because I would remove them daily) but they were still determined and I didn't count the days but I'm pretty sure that a couple of hens had been on the nest for over a month.  A hen will sit on the nest so long that they neglect to eat enough and they begin to get thin and pale.  Pale combs and wattles are an indication that a hen is not laying.  

I have read many sources saying that to break up broodiness then remove them from the nest daily.  I did this and they went right back to the nest each time.  I also read about getting a bucket with ice water and put them down in it up to their breast bone with the idea of cooling it down and this should break up the broodiness but you have to do this several days in a row and I thought it sounded like too much trouble so I have not tried this but I did read somewhere that if you put them somewhere away from their nest for three days this would work.  I was hoping that just isolating them for one day would work and so I tried that and it did not.  On a separate occasion, I tried it for two days and it did not work.  Wherever I read three days, they knew what they were talking about.  I kept the 8 hens in another pen for three days and then released them.  I was happy to see that they did not return to their nests except for one.  I quickly went to the nests and removed all eggs so that she would not see any to sit on.  Sure enough she looked into every nest and did not find any and it was about time to go to roost and so she did and the next day it appeared that she had indeed given up on nesting.  

I am happy to say that three days is the charmer and no less and all 8 hens have been cured of their broodiness - at least for now.