The Lucy Award for Courage

A few weeks ago, during raccoon mating season, juvenile coons formed bloodthirsty gangs and roamed our neighborhood killing chickens. The devils don’t kill the chickens for food. They kill out of frustration because they’d really like to kill the older male raccoons, who deny the juvies access to the females who are in heat. The birds’ throats are torn out. That’s all.

When mating season is over, gang hormonally-activated  subsides. At least that seems to be the case because, although Dennis recently forgot to close up the henhouse one night, no murders occurred.

This has become a familiar occurrence. The gangs got seven of our twelve hens in the early spring last year. This year they killed only a total of four in two raids, but that constituted half the flock.

Something remarkable happened in this year’s second raid: although two were murdered, a third intended victim, Lucy, survived. Apparently Lucy escaped a coon’s clutches, but she was badly wounded. Her comb and head were torn, but the deepest wound was to her throat, which was torn and bloody

Her head hung to the left, resting on her neck. There was blood on her feathers. She sat in a corner of the henhouse facing the wall. She didn’t seem to eat or even drink water. During the day Lucy moved to a far corner of the chicken yard and spent the day there alone. We thought she would die.

But she didn’t die. One morning Dennis came to the kitchen and announced that Lucy had died. He took a garbage bag to the henhouse to collect her body, but when he reached for her she jumped up and ran away.

As days went on, she still hung out in the corners, but began to show a little interest in food. She was afraid of the other hens, though, and they ran her off when she approached the food. I started throwing scratch and greens into the corners of the chicken yard for her.

After the second raccoon raid, which left two hens dead, including Olive, an Auracana, Lucy’s behavior changed. She rejoined the flock, which has been supplemented with eight new hens, and no one picked on her. She eats right along with them and now seems a restored bird. She still holds her head a bit to the right, but that and a misshapen comb seem to be the only aftereffects of her brush with death.

I admire Lucy greatly. Not many chickens can live to tell about being attacked by a raccoon’s sharp teeth and grasping hands. I wonder how she managed to excape the coon’s clutches. Did she manage to fly away? Did she peck his eye?

Lucy is, I think, a brave and courageous bird. That’s why, in her honor, I am establishing The Lucy Award for Courage. The award will be given to living creatures who have endured and persisted in the face of adversity, pain or great difficulty. It will be given whenever I feel moved to do so. (Nobody said this was fair or dispassionate.)

The award will consist of a certificate with a picture of Lucy.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer