Meet Boris the Blind Calf

When we heard about Boris, we just had to agree to take him on. Boris’s mum was ill with BVD when she was pregnant with him, this caused Boris’s blindness. As he would be difficult to rear for the farmer, we agreed to take him on.

We will offer Boris a permanent, life long home.  As he was born blind, rather than became blind, he makes extra use of his other senses and, once he knows his surroundings can move about quite freely.

Boris has already had a good brush and we are getting him used to human contact.  We are also getting him used to being on a harness so that he can come on walks with us.

When he came to us, he had only lived in a cow shed and so never smelt the sweet smell of spring grass. Over the past few weeks we have been teaching him how to eat it. You would think that this would come natural to him, but no. Although he would happily eat grass picked for him, we had to teach him that grass was all around and all he had to do was bend down to find it.

Although he now finds grass himself to eat, as you can see he hasn’t quite learnt how to reach down with his head, without the need to knee! It is quite a sight seeing him bend down and eat all the grass in front of him. The field ends up with long grass with loads of bold circles where Boris has been kneeling.

We are now trying to raise the funds to get the vet out to give him the snip, vaccinate and care for him.

Edit: 6 September 2009