RIP Bonaparte

Today, I have sad news.  Our trespassing Peacock was struck by a car and killed on Saturday.  My neighbor found him in her driveway.  My guess is that he was attempting to fly across the street after visiting our farm.  He had been molting so was lacking in feathers.  He only had 4 tail feathers left when he was found.  As annoying as he could be we did enjoy his visits and the lovely dance he did for the roosters!
Rest in peace Bonaparte!

On a lighter note...

Our fist batch of chicks that we got in March have just started to lay eggs!  We know that two are laying and two should start any day.  They are laying light brown eggs.  I can't wait for Sleepers to start laying because she will be laying white eggs.  The picture below is of Penguin.  I couldn't believe it when I went into the hen house to collect eggs and there she was sitting in one of the boxes!

If you look carefully you can see the egg behind her right leg.  When a chicken first starts to lay eggs she will lay a very small egg.  As she gets older her eggs will get bigger.  By next summer she will laying large light brown eggs!  She's so sweet!

 Here is an egg laid by one of my adult Barred Rocks and the small one next to it is the one Penguin laid!  She may look as big as the other hen but she is still just a chick and hasn't reached her full weight yet.  She probably weighs about 6-7 pounds and she will top off around 8-9! 

Snowdrop, our baby goat is coming along nicely.  She is gaining weight slowly but surely.  Our most difficult task has been to get her to stay in the pasture with the other goats.  She is so little that there are lots of little bends in the fence that she just sneaks under!  It's not unusual to put her in the barn only to have her standing at the back door a minute or two later.  We will be moving the goats into another barn later this week and building a little "goat kid" area for her to hide in. We hope that will alleviate her desire to escape!