Why you shouldn't put your chickens near your face.

I was holding my newest pullet Pterri the other day while my boyfriend was hosing out her brooder. She hopped up onto my shoulder and pecked me in the eyeball. Rinsed it with saline solution every couple of hours and hoped it would improve by morning. SEVERE PAIN all night, felt like I had sand in my eye, couldn't sleep. Got up in the morning and my eye was so swollen shut that I couldn't even open the good eye. My boyfriend called the eye doctor and they told him to bring me in immediately. Walking out into the sunlight was like opening my eyes in a vat of acid. They put those anesthetic drops in my eye right away and sat me in a dark room. I have a severe corneal abrasion in my right eye. The doctor, who was wonderful, had to pull a bunch of broken tissue off the surface of my eyeball with tweezers. Then he gave me a couple kinds of eye drops and sent me home with an appointment for the next day (today). Well, as soon as those anesthetic drops wore off I was in excrutiating pain. The office called to check up on me and told me to come back in for more drops. This time they put a contact lens in my injured eye to prevent my lids from scraping the abrasion when I blink. It helped a lot but, man, was I still in pain. I took some 800mg ibuprofen left over from my kidney stones and finally fell asleep. I woke up at 6:40 this morning, eye a bit less swollen but watering uncontrollably. My friend picked me up for my appointment. Today the doctor said that my eye is healing but they're worried I'm going to have corneal scarring. I have to go in again tomorrow afternoon and, depending on my improvement, they'll decide whether or not I will need debridement surgery. Sigh....

This is awful. I'm thankful that I can at least open my eye for short periods of time today. I'm thankful that I am not blind. I'm thankful that most of the pain has subsided but HOLY COW this discomfort and light sensitivity is almost unbearable.

I know Pterri wasn't trying to hurt me. She goes after shiny things. Earlier that day she tried to rip my piercing out of my face. She's a 7 week old chick, and though cuuuuute as heck, clearly not very smart. And apparently neither am I for letting her so close to my face.

Thank you! Trust me, I will NEVER put a chicken near my face again! Or I'll just wear safety goggles LOL. That was a painful reminder that, even though they can be sweet pets with wonderful personalities, they ARE birds and birds PECK!

Thanks