Motherhood comes in different forms. A hen who could not produce eggs was left very withdrawn from the rest of the brood of chickens. One day, a rescued duckling was brought to the family farm. The duckling was placed close to the hen and after a couple of tries, the duck stayed with the chicken. Now the two are inseparable. The relationship is definitely that of mom and child. The new mother is doing her duty to teach her little one how to find insects. The photo story below is proof that you do not need to be related by blood, or in this case species, to be a family.My girlfriend has to work in a duckling production factory this summer in order to finance her plane ticket to join me in South East Asia. So every day she has to cut with a laser hundreds of duckling’s beak and vaccinate them for mass production. Her coworkers are desensitize and sometime kill them for fun.
Two days ago she found a lucky one who escaped to the parking lot and took it back home. It was very energetic and full of life, definitely this one didn’t want to end up being force fed and wanted to see the light of the sun and grass.
My girlfriend’s family lives in the country side of France and they have 7 chickens and a cock, they live freely and sleep in a tree. However one of the chicken is different, she’s kind of an outcast and don’t hang out with the rest of the chicken and sleep alone in the Barn. For years she’s never been able to have chicks and so she was nurturing rotten eggs for months and even chestnuts that she was mistaking for her own eggs.
When my girlfriend took back the duckling, her mom took the chicken put the duckling on the bottom of it and put back the chicken. Both were confuse at the beginning so they had to repeat the process a few time. And the duckling was very energetic so it always tried to escape. But after a few time and maybe because it was cold the duckling chose to stay under the wing of the chicken.
Now the chicken fully recognizes the duckling as hers and the duckling follows her everywhere, it even jumped on the back of the chicken like it would have done in the nature with a mommy duck. My girlfriend and her family cannot approach the duckling anymore as the chicken activated her overly protective mum mode and puff her feathers and peck the ones who dare come near the duckling. They can still pet her back tough. In this picture she’s teaching him to roam and eat insects.
