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“Ducklings will make their mark on anything that moves larger than a matchbox,” says Antone Martinho-Truswell, co-founder of the Duckling Laboratory at Oxford University while doing his PhD in zoology. Ducks are what scientists call early birds – capable of feeding, swimming and walking soon after hatching. Yet ducklings are vulnerable, so little puffballs have evolved to seek and memorize their mother’s image. If a duckling hatches and doesn’t see it, it will eagerly step on something else like you.
Constantly walk around a duckling immediately after hatching. Ducklings are most sensitive to stigma 12 to 36 hours after hatching (and the stigma window lasts about 14 days). Put yourself where they can see you. Birds are visual creatures; The duckling opens its eyes and immediately starts looking for a sitter. They prefer duck-sized objects and S-curve-shaped necks, but are not picky – they will print on people, cats, dogs, or in the case of Martinho-Truswell’s lab research, brightly colored plastic balls or hanging cardboard shapes. from a boom rotating on a rope. Avoid wearing yellow; Ducklings prefer not to print on anything yellow. “We think this is to keep their siblings from putting pressure on them,” says Martinho-Truswell. Don’t be a duck parent on a whim, though; this is a big commitment. Stamping is helpful if you’re a duck farmer, but otherwise it can be a burden. Mallard ducks can live for more than 20 years. “You take on something that will treat you like a mother for the first year and then treat you like family for the rest of your life,” she says.
Martinho-Truswell hatched his ducks in the dark in the lab, and for nearly two days the only moving objects they saw were dangling shapes. About a day later he would take the ducks out of their boxes and instead, looking relieved to put pressure on him, they ran after him in the lab and rolled over. “I really loved being a mother to all of these little ducks,” she says. Before the first 14-day window closed, he would deliver the ducklings to a nearby farm so that the ducklings would make their mark on the farmer. Let you feel the interspecies tenderness of a duck’s devotion; This little thing needs you. “She can’t predict what her mother will look like in the egg,” says Martinho-Truswell.
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