My sweet hen, a beautiful Buff Orpington named Lucy is blind as a bat. We have had her for almost two years. Shortly after she came to us, she was pecked badly by a mean Barred Rock hen and blinded in one eye. Gradually she has lost sight in the other as well, although I think she sees shadows. Since being blind she has lived in three different coops, moved once and had more changes to the configuration of the chicken yard than I care to count. Through it all she remains the sweetest hen on earth. She runs into walls, falls off of roosts, trips over items carelessly left in her path, and occasionally gets too close to someone else’s babies. She has gotten a serious beatdown for this and she doesn’t even know what she did wrong! But for all the things she can’t do, there are ten things she can do.
She gets trapped in corners a lot…
But she can always find her way out by following my voice.
She can’t get up on the high roost at night, much less in the rafters…
But she can find her special disabled roost.
She has old friends.
But makes new friends easily.
Lucy loves to chat…
But she is an even better listener. We have serious discussions every morning.
She can’t seem to locate the nest boxes…
But almost everyday she’s lays a big brown egg in the grass.
She never had babies of her own but that doesn’t mean she was never a Mama.
Blind Lucy won’t always be with us. I thought we would lose her a few months ago when she stayed in the coop for days, lying in a corner, frail and not eating. I was so sure we would lose her, that I shopped online for a little plaque to place on her grave to honor her memory. But it wasn’t her time to go. She got better and returned to her rightful place in the flock.
Lucy reminds me not to dwell on the things I can’t do anymore, but to appreciate the things I still can do. I posted this tribute to Lucy today because when we do lose her, I will be too sad to put into words how special she was. There will just be a short note and a link to this post.
You’ll know that Lucy was loved, not only by us but by every little punk cockerel in the flock. Please enjoy this video of a brief relationship between Blind Lucy and a little Icelandic cockerel named Magnus.
Mary O'Brien says
Thank you Patty. She was a wonderful girl who brightened our lives. We occasionally had a chuckle at her expense if we could she she was headed for something she was going to run into. But She was loved.
patty says
thank you for sharing……..wonderful ..wish i could have know lucy