Not long after we lost the runt we had a baby chick get a piece of bedding stuck in her eye, folded down into her bottom lid and covering the whole thing. She happened to (now) be the smallest of our chickens and the same breed as the one that had passed away. Whatever type of chicken she may be has not proven to be hardy in our home. I scooped her up and soaked her eye and the bedding attached to it in warm water, gently pulling the foreign object out as it softened. I dried her and put her back with her group. Over the next day or two her eye seemed to have a film on it and she still wasn't able to see our hand if we reached for her on that side. She wasn't growing like the rest of our girls either. I was detaching myself from her, thinking that she may not recover. My husband would joke that a one eyed chicken could lay eggs just as well as the two eyed variety. My husband took over the mending of her eye, cleaning it, putting ointment on it. Then one day (about a week later) she was better. She started growing again, almost catching up to the other smaller chicks. She started using her eye again. We can still tell which one she is by her tiny size, but it looks like she gets to be a two eyed variety after all.
This post is part of 31 Days- a writing challenge and twelfth in my baby chick series!