RIP Sunbeam

Well, I was having a great day today getting so much done outside "spring cleaning" the yard.  I was really on a roll until I found my favorite hen, Sunbeam...or what was left of her, lying dead in the chicken pasture.

WHY do they always go for your favorite chickens first?  :(  She laid such pretty blue eggs.

I think it must have been an opossum.  I had found a smashed mess of eggs in the nest boxes twice last week and suspected it could have been an opossum or else I had a terrible outbreak of egg-eating going on.  Unfortunately I went with the latter assumption and went to work building a new roll-out nest.  If I'd gotten to work patching the holes under the chicken barn, this wouldn't have happened.  So of course, I feel terribly guilty.

I didn't tell little Sweetie Pie and was glad she didn't see it.  She would be devastated.

The chickens had dug out several dusting holes at the back of the chicken barn and the rain had washed out the soil as well.  I had started skirting the building with wire and big rocks last fall, but never got it finished.  Well, it's finished now.  My coop and run are now impenetrable.  I'll keep the run closed and only let them out into their fenced pasture when I am home (at least until I get electric run on the little pasture.) 

Up until now, I'd only lost a couple chickens to loose dogs.  I suppose it could have been a hawk, but it was most likely an opossum.  Nasty opossums.  I am so bummed out.

This was a perfect day otherwise.  Well, that--and I broke an egg in my pocket this afternoon.  You'd think I'd know better by now than to put eggs in my pockets.  Or leave open holes under the coop... ((Sigh))