Mothers in the animal kingdom all take the best care they can when raising their babies, including ducks. Mother ducks are quite good at taking care of their young.
This article looks into how a mother duck takes care of her young.
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How does a mother duck take care of her ducklings?
Mother ducks are quite attentive toward their young and they will do a lot to make sure that their ducklings, and their eggs, are well taken care of.
Here is how a mother duck takes care of her ducklings:
The egg stage:
A mother duck will start looking after her ducklings very early on even before the ducklings hatch. She does this by looking for somewhere safe and secure to lay, and incubate, her eggs.
The mother will look for an isolated location to build her nest in, this may be in a chimney, in your isolated and safe backyard, or anywhere with lots of vegetation that can hide her as she sits on the eggs.
Once she has found this nesting location she will proceed to build the nest. She will choose nesting materials that will help her camouflage herself and keep predators at bay.
The materials that she will use include brown leaves grasses and other vegetation that she can blend in with. A brown duck is harder to see against this kind of vegetation.
When incubating:
The next way that a mother duck takes care of her ducklings is by sitting on her eggs. The mother duck will sit on her eggs to keep them warm and to protect them from predators.
A variety of predators will take their chances and try to steal a duck’s eggs if she isn’t around, so, she will sit on her eggs for 20-23 hours a day to keep them safe.
After hatching:
The mother duckling will also take great caution to protect her young once they have hatched.
She will supervise the ducklings as they play with each other and eat.
The family will go out looking for food soon after the ducklings hatch. The mother will pick foraging locations that she knows are safe and free from predators.
The mother will also take the ducklings to water so that they can clear their nares.
Before the mother leads the ducklings to water, she will coat their feathers with the oil from her feathers in order to waterproof them.
The mother duck will also incubate the ducklings even after they’ve hatched. She does this to keep them warm when the weather gets colder.
The babies have a layer of down feathers when they are young, unfortunately, this doesn’t insulate too well against the cold, so, the mother duck will sit on her ducklings and share her warmth with them until they can regulate their own body temperature.
When socializing:
Ducklings are hatched in isolation and are introduced to the members of the flock later on. The other members of the flock however are generally not so welcoming to new members of the flock.
The mother duck will take care of her babies by protecting them from adults that are in the flock that would want to harm or even kill the babies.
The mother duck will protect her duckling by exhibiting aggressive behavior and by making loud noises at the aggressive adult ducks to keep them away from her babies.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Do Ducks Hide Their Babies?, Egg Broke Inside Of Duck, Why Do Ducks Bite Your Feet?, How To Communicate With Ducks, How To Play With Baby Ducks, Duckling Keeps Getting Stuck On Back, Why Does My Duck Jump On Me, Chick Sitting Back On Legs, Why Does My Duck Lay Flat?