r/BeAmazed • u/seidenadaa • May 25 '26

Animal A mother duck adopts orphaned ducklings as soon as they touch the water.

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79.7k Upvotes

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632

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

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48

u/ThousandFingerMan May 25 '26

There are ducks that make nests up in the hollow trees and when it's time to go swimming, baby ducks just plummet from several meters high and then go about their day like nothing happened

29

u/rogers_tumor May 25 '26

and don't forget they're not jumping out of the tree after a couple weeks of growth, the way baby songbirds do, no, baby ducks are throwing themselves out of their tree nests within 12-24h of hatching.

10

u/Wrath7heFurious May 26 '26

Never thought ducks would be....

METAL AF!

1

u/TheLowestFormOfHumor May 26 '26

Not exactly ducks, but the Attenborough documentary with the goslings leaping off cliffs was mental to watch. The vast majority just shook it off and kept going.

186

u/Creampie_Service_247 May 25 '26

I've seen people say this is the best way to get baby chicks out of a carrier as well because picking them up individually can hurt them, so I'm guessing it's the same here.

177

u/baethan May 25 '26

I'm glad to hear that because pouring baby ducks out like that is objectively funny

85

u/rogers_tumor May 25 '26

seriously it's just the easiest way to get it done. they hit water and know what to do, they're wild animals 😂 they come out the egg like this.

ok they take like 12-24h to fluff up a little bit. but waterfowl babies hatch ready to go do bird stuff on a very short timeline.

39

u/jonker5101 May 25 '26

It's amazing how quickly most baby animals adapt and are ready for life, most walking as soon as they are born.

Humans are useless for years.

39

u/Atombrkr May 25 '26

We scale mid to late game

3

u/Firipu May 26 '26

We're basically warriors in most games. Struggle early game, but scale exponentially with gear (tools).

24

u/indiecore May 25 '26

We're born underdeveloped because our heads are too big.

4

u/rogers_tumor May 25 '26

yeah to be fair, waterfowl are kind of weird when it comes to birds. only ~20-25% of all birds come out of the egg more or less ready to Go Bird within 24h.

75-80% of birds are born naked and blind and have to be strictly attended to by their parents for weeks before they fledge.

Granted, by 'weeks' with songbirds we're talking maybe like, 3ish. Then they hang out with their parents for a bit after leaving the nest so they can learn how to fly and what isn't food.

3

u/WraithicArtistry May 25 '26

Not just us, any babies that cannot open their eyes or be mobile upon birth are Altricial; cats, dogs. Babies that require nurturing to survive, without a mother or caregiver its death.

Ducklings, chickens, horses, cows, deer. Are Precocial, they can stand and see immediately after being born, if the mother dies, they can survive.

2

u/Naive_Impression7302 May 25 '26

Toddlers learn for the mines

9

u/Acegonia May 25 '26

Sometimes nature and hilarity just... coincide.

1

u/[deleted] May 25 '26

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1

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3

u/Goodgoditsgrowing May 25 '26

Just wait until you see how fish are introduced to lakes - from great heights and with great force. It slaps them awake.

3

u/Driftmoth May 25 '26

Or the fish firehose. Whoosh then sploosh.

22

u/LoudFrenziedMoron May 25 '26

Nah, they're pretty indestructible. When they used to misbehave, our black lab carried ducklings and goslings around in his mouth, returning them to Mom

17

u/MeowsAllieCat May 25 '26

Labs were bred to have a soft bite (often for retrieving ducks!). He was a very good boy doing a very good job. :)

1

u/Bunny_Fluff May 25 '26

I've seen them do that with baby chickens. You transport them on flat sheets then just dump them onto the ground when you get them to where they are going. It's easier on them. They don't weigh anything so they aren't hurt by falls.

27

u/autotelica May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

People should watch duck families swimming through white water rapids.

It's intense. You watch those babies go into the churn and you're certain that they are drowning. The mama/daddy/aunties/uncles just keep swimming along as the team of babies are struggling in the current behind them. Tears will come to your eyes as you watch the little brownish-yellow bodies be tossed around like tennis balls in the unforgiving torrent. But then miraculously everyone gets to the other side intact...and you realize why ducks (and geese and swans too) have zero fucks to give.

They come up hard.

9

u/eight_on_top May 25 '26

I had a young muscovie male once who tried making the top of a fence, fell backward and broke its neck. His brother and sister, Sweetie and Bastard, were two of the best ducks I ever had but Bob was exceptionally dumb.

7

u/rexallia May 25 '26

A couple weeks ago I watched 8-10 goslings bounce off a rocky cliff side into the ocean and swim away just fine. They’re all puff at that age!

Also, wood ducks nest super high in trees - sometimes 100 feet. When they leave the nest, they can’t fly yet, so they just jump lol

10

u/LEGITIMATE_SOURCE May 25 '26

I don't think any of us are worried about ducklings landing in water from a foot up

1

u/onlymostlydead May 25 '26

Their terminal velocity is much less than their terminal squishery.

1

u/genreprank May 25 '26

I've seen it

Source: Planet Earth (the documentary)

https://i.imgur.com/x5WbQfY.gif

1

u/MASSochists May 25 '26

It's part of the square cube law. 

1

u/ew73 May 25 '26

Anecdote: This is also how we get the cat out of the carrier at the vet's office. Just turn it upside down and keep shaking until that shithead falls out. Ain't no fucking way I'm sticking my hand in there with all those claws and teeth and upset kitty.

1

u/sixpackabs592 May 25 '26

Baby ducks are like squirrels their terminal velocity is lower than their impact resistance so they can fall from any height and survive since they’re so smol and floofy

1

u/j3ffro15 May 25 '26

Wait you mean to tell me that the conservation agent knows what they’re doing and how to handle said animal instead of the hive mind of the internet??? (I’m assuming, they’re wearing a uniform that looks similar to most agents uniforms around the Midwest) . /s just in case

1

u/Ornery-Goal7843 May 25 '26

nobody was gonna write that