I don’t know how duck genetics work.
Honestly she might have just abducted them. Ducks and geese will steal ducklings/goslings as a territorial thing, and also because adding another 5-10 babies means that much of a chance less that a predator will grab your baby out of the bunch. They take care of themselves more or less, so the babies don’t suffer for it.
I’ve heard ducks can’t count (a lot of birds can) so they’re often losing and gaining ducklings just accidentally, which makes me feel like it’s got to be scary to be a duckling. But then ducks have other problems too. Weird species.
Such as the evolutionary duck genital arms race.
Spiral Cocks vs Maze Cunts!
Now that is a roller derby match I would watch!
I mean, alongside all the other ones
I wonder what, exactly, helping to take care of ducklings entails?
Do they come in the house, and take over a bedroom with an en suite, watch Bluey and eat all the popcorn?
Do they just get fed on the porch?
Something in between?
Don’t ask questions when you know the answer is fowl.
For chickens and turkeys it’s basically: Keep them warm. Keep them fed. Keep them clean.
They have brooders, which are basically simple enclosures for this kind of thing.
That’s usually when there’s no mother though. I have no idea where they would keep her, or if she goes in and out. My guess is they just have a safe spot the duck likes, and they started feeding them.
Yellow ducklings turn white when they grow.
Merlin says it’s a Muscovy Duck, and one of the pictures is a half yellow half black duckling so probably normal.
I really like that first call of theirs on that site from Argentina. The others sound more like what I would think a duck would sound like.
While @[email protected] has a good guess, Im pretty sure duck broods can have more than one father, just like cats. (I.E. multiple mates, some eggs fertilized by different fathers)
