Here’s a report from a Swedish news site about a duck and a chicken that are raising a family together. I don’t read Swedish, but fortunately a Boing Boing reader provided a translation:
A duck and a hen on a farm outside Söderköping have found each other. The duck is now a foster-father to five chickens.
Annika Stenbäck and Peter Andersson, who live at the farm, tell the daily Norrköpings Tidningar about the love birds.
The birds started dating already last summer, after the duck accidentally drowned his mate during lovemaking. However, the duck didn’t spend much time in mourning before starting to date the hen instead.
Soon, the hen started laying and brooding, but as the eggs were not fertilized, they never hatched.
“So we fetched some fertilized eggs from our old hens at my parents-in-law. She got six chickens, but one has died,” says Annika Stenbäck.
During the entire brooding period the duck kept a nervous watch by the hen’s side.
“And since the chickens were hatched he hasn’t left her side,” says Annika Stenbäck to Norrköpings Tidningar.
It was actually this story that finally pushed me over the edge and prompted me to start this weblog after years of threatening to do so.
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OMDog, that is precious!!!
on animal planet,there was a show on called ”Heart of a Lioness.”i didn’t see
all of it,but the lioness keeps watch over
a motherless gazelle calf.when she lost the calf to an adult male lion,she acted as if she had lost a cub.