Our blind calf, Rascal, still amazes us at six months old. His blindness doesn’t hold him back at all.

Rascal lives with the herd, eating grass and walking through the pasture like any other calf. His mother keeps an eye on him, but Rascal freely grazes all over the pasture with the other calves. He uses his senses of hearing and touch to navigate the pasture perfectly.

Rascal’s mother taught him where the gates are located. He ran into the electric fence a couple of times at first. Then his mother would go through the gate and turn around to face Rascal. She would call to him and he followed her voice. After doing this a few times, he quickly learned to find his own way through the gates.

Rascal’s sense of touch is amazing. He can tell exactly where he is in the pasture by feeling the ground under his feet. He knows which trail he is on and he knows where the trees are so he can walk around them without bumping his head.

The only times Rascal gets confused are when we run the tractor close to him so he can’t hear the other cows, or when he is startled. When something unexpected happens and Rascal moves quickly out of the way, he sometimes loses his bearings for a couple of minutes. When he gets confused he runs into trees or fences, but it doesn't happen very often.

It’s been amazing to watch Rascal’s development. Many farms would not keep a blind calf. We wouldn’t miss the opportunity. Watching Rascal grow  is an inspiration.

It’s midnight in mid-June. The rain is coming down hard. Thunder rolls overhead. I feel dampness on my arms when water seeps in the seams of my rain suit. I am about a quarter of a mile back of the barn in the meadow by the creek, feeding the third bottle of the day to Rascal, our blind calf. He is now 8 weeks old and grazing along side his mother with the rest of the herd. It would be difficult to know he is blind if I didn't tell you.

As Rascal enthusiastically sucks the warm milk from the bottle and the rain patters on my rain suit, I am mesmerized by a thousand flickering fireflies floating effortlessly against the dark backdrop of the trees that surround the meadow. They float above the grass, blinking eerie green beacons of light against the darkness of the trees. It’s like sitting in an Imax theater with the screen curving around, where a person is right in the middle of something much bigger than himself. Who would have guessed that fireflies would be flying in such a hard rain?

Nightime on the farm is special. On a rainy night, the darkness is really dark! There are no streetlights out here. On a clear night the stars are spectacular. The moon can light up the landscape so brightly a flashlight is unnecessary. There is a chorus of a thousand frogs singing at the tops of their lungs. An owl calls from a nearby tree down by the creek. A short distance away a pack of coyotes call to each other as they hunt. The coyotes fall silent, then the night is pierced by the scream of a rabbit being caught. Nature has a way of keeping everything in balance, and it’s not always a quiet process.

Rascal is done with his bottle. He and I play for a couple of minutes before he heads back into the meadow to find his mother, and I head back to the house to catch a few minutes of TV weather before turning in for the night. I take one last glance around the meadow, still mesmerized by the sight of a thousand flickering fireflies as they wink and blink their eerie green glow. Then I walk back to the barn through the rain and lose sight of the fireflies and the stars when the  mercury vapor light on the barn takes control of the darkness.

I’m going to miss those midnight walks back to the meadow when Rascal is all grown up and doesn’t need a bottle any more!

This beautiful white bull calf was born two days ago with a challenge that is new to us. He is completely blind. We noticed right away he is afraid of any noises, including those made by other cows. We also noticed that he could not seem to identify which cow was his mother. Consequently he did not nurse, and he kept running away from the herd.

We found him outside the pasture in the blackberry briars one time, and across the field near the bee hives the next time. After 24 hours of this we put him in a pen and brought his mother in with him.

Without food or water for a whole day after being born, the calf was hungry. He accepted a bottle and drank like a champ. However, later in the afternoon when we tried again, he refused the bottle. We think he figured out how to nurse his mother, but we are still keeping an eye on him.

Doc Brown, our veterinarian, was here at noon today. Doc said the blindness is not genetic, or due to any deficiency of vitamins or minerals. He said the calf's nervous system was damaged by oxygen deprivation during birth.

Structurally there is nothing wrong with the calf’s eyes. Sometimes there can be birth defects where part of the eyes are missing, or viruses can cause cataracts. None of those is a problem with this calf’s eyes.

However, just because the eye structure is correct does not mean the eyes work correctly. The calf exhibits a condition called strabismus, meaning the eyes do not align normally. The eyes may turn in, out, up or down, either together or independently of each other.

The calf will not likely outgrow the strabismus. If any vision returns in one or both eyes, his brain will eventually disregard the image from one of the eyes and he will learn to focus the other one. However, neither eye appears to be responding to any visual stimulus at this time, so there is no reason for them to focus.

There is a small chance the calf may gain some percentage of vision, but there are no guarantees. All we can do is wait and watch.

We are planning to keep the calf and his mother penned up together for a couple of weeks. Then we will let them out into the pasture and see how it goes. We will keep you posted.