The Love of Louie and Libby

by Stephanie Ernst

categories: Animal Emotions, Animal Profiles, CageFree and FreeRange, Dairy and Eggs, Farm Animals, Sanctuaries

Published June 22, 2009 @ 08:08AM PT

Libby and Louie, A Love Story

I am not going to suggest that you read this story. I am not going to ask that you read this story. I am going to beg you, plead with you, to read this story shared by Joanna of Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary.

Particularly if you are someone who doubts the depths of emotions animals feel, who doubts the way they love one another and build specific, chosen relationships as we do, who is unsure of how unique each individual is and how deep the bonds between them go, who thinks that they are distinctly different from us--please read this.

We could change little bits in this story, and it would read just like the story of a devoted elderly human couple, a pair of soulmates connected in ways only they can fully understand, in ways that make their lives worth living. It is a story we can all relate to--about love and about the things we do, the sacrifices we make, the care we provide, and the lengths we go to for the ones we love and wish to protect.

But Libby and Louie are not humans. They are chickens. And their story is nothing short of remarkable. It will swell your heart and bring tears to your eyes. It will change the way you think about chickens. It will change the way you think about "chicken"--and eggs, given how hens suffer and die for them, given how Libbie herself suffered so much for them. I hope it will change the way that you eat.

A preview, if you feel you need one:

Occasionally, there were the soundbursts for their shared moments of displeasure, hurt, sadness, fear, or downright panic, such as the time when Libby got accidentally locked in a barn that was being cleaned and Louie, distressed at the sudden separation, paced frantically up and down the narrow path on the other side of the closed door, crowing his alarm, crying his pleas, clucking his commands, flapping his wings, showering us with a spray of fervid whistles, following us around, then running back to the barn door, clacking at it, knocking on it, then running back to us, whirring his wings, stomping his feet, tapping the ground with his beak, staring intently, and generally communicating Libby's predicament in every "language" available to him: sound, movement, gaze, color, and certainly scent too. . . .

It would have been easier and more "natural" for Louie to be in charge of a group of hens, like all the other roosters, but he ignored everyone except Libby. He paid no attention to the fluffy gray hen, the fiery blonde hen, the dreamy red hen, the sweet black hen dawdling in her downy pantaloons, or any of the 100 snow-white hens who, to our dim perceptions, looked exactly like Libby. Louie, the most resplendently bedecked and befeathered rooster of the sanctuary, remained devoted only to Libby – scrawny body, scraggly feathers, missing foot, hobbled gait and all. It's true that, with our dull senses, we couldn't grasp a fraction of what he saw in her because we can't see, smell, hear, touch, taste, sense a scintilla of the sights, scents, sounds, textures, and tastes he does. But, even if we could see Libby in all her glory, it would still be clear that it wasn't her physical attributes that enraptured Louie. If he sought her as his one and only companion, if he protected that union from all intrusions, it wasn't because of her physique but because of her presence.

It would have been easier for Libby too – so vulnerable in her stunted, lame body – to join an existing chicken family and enjoy the added comfort, cover and protection of a larger group, but she never did. She stayed with Louie, and followed him on his daily treks in the open fields, limping and gimping behind him, exhausting herself only to be near him. . . .

Today, it was Libby who "spoke" for both of them. And, this time, there was no doubt whose voice it was, or what it was saying, because it not only sounded off, it split open the sky, punctured the clouds, issued forth with such gripping force and immediacy that it stopped you dead in your tracks. It was a sound of such pure sorrow and longing, hanging there all alone, in stark and immaculate solitude, high above the din of sanctuary life, like the heart-piercing cry of an albatross. She had started to cluck barely audibly at dawn, when Louie failed to get up and lingered listlessly in their nest. She continued her plaintive murmur into the afternoon, when Louie became too weak to hold his head up and collapsed in a heap of limp feathers. And then, when we scooped him up and quarantined him into a separate room for treatment, her soft lament turned to wrenching wail.

The story does not end there, and it is a beautifully written account of multiple remarkable moments, with--I think--the most moving moments yet to come. Please do yourself the favor of reading Libby and Louie's whole story, a love story if ever there was one.