Ducklings can become orphans if something happens to their mother, the father duck isn’t there to take care of the baby birds so the death of the mother can mean the death of the duckling.
But will these ducklings be adopted by another mother duck or will she reject the ducklings? This article looks into it
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Will ducks adopt other ducks?
Many animals adopt orphaned animals, some animals will even adopt orphaned animals that belong to another species. Here is what you need to know about a mother duck adopting duckings:
This is when mother ducks will adopt ducklings:
A mother duck will adopt a duckling if the ducklings are of the same age as her recently hatched ducklings, this may be because the mother can’t tell the new duckling and her own ducklings apart.
If you give ducks eggs, that are just about to hatch, to the mother duck, and the mother duck is the first duck that the duckling sees when it hatches, then the duckling will imprint on her and see the mother as its real mother
Mother ducks can’t tell which eggs are hers and which aren’t hers, she will simply sit on the eggs and raise the ducklings even if the ducklings aren’t hers.
You can simply slip the eggs that you want her to hatch and raise under her and there should be no problems
If she has already hatched the eggs, and you give her ducklings that have a 2 week or less age differential than her ducklings then she will adopt and take care of the orphaned ducklings and take care of them as though they are her own
If you have a large number of ducklings that need to be adopted, then you may need to split the ducklings between two or more mother ducks to lessen the burden on one mother duck
Keep an eye on the blended family to see if the mother duck accepts the ducklings
When mother ducks won’t adopt ducklings:
A mother duck will adopt ducklings in the above circumstance but she will not adopt the bird in all circumstances.
If the orphaned ducklings and her ducklings have more than a 2 week age gap between them then the mother duck will not adopt the ducklings.
Ducklings grow at a remarkable rate and the mother duck knows this and can see this.
These birds can grow about an ounce a day and how these birds look and act will also be different so a 2 week difference is very easy to see even for ducks
If you introduce a duckling that has more than a 2-week age difference from a mother’s ducklings then she will reject the orphaned duckling, in fact, she will even kill the orphaned duckling
Mother ducks are not open to raising ducklings that they don’t see as their own because they see these other ducklings as being a source of competition for their own birds.
They also see raising the other ducking as taking resources away from their ducklings putting them at a disadvantage
Drakes and adopting ducklings:
Drakes are known to be very bad parents, these male birds will flee the scene after successfully mating with a female duck, he doesn’t raise the ducklings and won’t adopt any.
In fact, a drake can become a danger to ducklings as he sees ducklings that aren’t his own as an obstacle to achieving his hormonal instinct of mating with a female duck and creating ducklings of his own.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other duck related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Ducklings Separated From Their Mother, How To Stop Ducks From Pooping On The Driveway, Aggressive Female Duck Behavior, Do Ducks Drown Other Ducks?