Cat Adopts Baby Ducklings | Animal Odd Couples | Real Wild Short

[Music] Ronan and Emma Lally owned a small farm that they run alongside their day jobs [Music] they have a lovely collection of animals but wanted some ducks to complete the picture so they got in some fertilized eggs on the day they hatched Ronen went to check on them but couldn't find the ducklings in the barn within seconds of that a cat jumped down from a pigeon hole wouldn't shared over there and say I kind of put one and one together and I just presumed that there the cat had swallowed up the ducklings at this stage they were missing for about six hours so Roland thought there was no hope at all after searching around the farm they eventually found the ducklings but unfortunately the cat della had got there first I ended up catching their cash with a duck in her mouth at this stage and it really looked Ronon was like she's going to kill the dog no no we're only after getting the back and no he's going to eat them right in front of us then Emma noticed something unusual I was like groaning she's not actually forcefully holding this took that's when the amazing thing happened we put there the cat down and put the ducklings down and then all of a sudden the tree little ducklings waddled straight underneath the cat the cat lay down in her sight put her paw over one of the ducklings and was kind of nursing the duckling and towards us so we were I mean just absolutely blown away with this because normally cats would eat small birds but it was absolute was his I'm just it was awesome was just incredible to see it she was very content at this stage she was / and she was really loving towards the docklands when I was patting her down and I know it was that she actually had given birth to tree hiddens only I put in an hour or so beforehand it was a very lucky coincidence for the ducklings that the cat found them just after giving birth herself for a narrow window of a couple of hours mothering hormones will have been coursing through her body causing her to love and nurture any small warm furry creature she found next to her I have no doubt whatsoever that the cat was thinking dinner if she had seen them either maybe a couple of hours before or a couple of hours after I have no doubt she would put the napkin around her neck knife and fork salt and pepper the whole lot but it was when they came to move the unusual family into a safer spot that they got an even greater surprise as soon as we lifted up the cat that's when we were totally amazed because the ducklings were actually latched on to their to the cat's nipple so they were hanging from her yeah it was very very bizarre when we seen them breastfeeding we just thought oh my god there's something very very strange happening here and some very strange it also something very unique you know duck mums don't produce milk and ducklings are born ready to find their own food and water from their surroundings so to see them suckling a cat is extraordinary experts can only guess that their natural foraging instinct cools them to come upon the milk as an unexpected food source and their desire for warmth and comfort kept them close to their foster mother [Music] Ronan was keen to separate the Ducks fearful the cats predatory instincts might kick back in but Emma being a midwife recognized something that she regularly sees at work there was just so much love there you know and like I see it every day in the labor ward they just want to hold them baby so tight and close it's a moment that just lasts forever and I could see that happening with the cat and and the Ducks it just took me a while to convince her on and because this one they're just so in love they're just the long each other like you can't break this bond it's amazing before long the duckling started to outgrow the kittens and gain their independence something the cat who wasn't so happy with these dogs her yellow kittens were a lot more active as she founded her to control them she was trying to bring him back underneath her and say no be good like your brothers and sisters several weeks later the kittens are still small and the Ducks although independent still have an attachment to their surrogate mum [Music] so it would seem that this rare coincidence of a cat giving birth just as a ducklings were making their first steps into the world resulted in this remarkable situation filled with an instinct to mother small furry creatures the cat ignored any natural urge to eat the ducklings and took the mom as her own now it could be argued that all of this only happened because it was a domestic situation with animals that were unusually close to each other but there are other examples that suggest the mothering instinct is so strong this can even happen in the wild a few years ago the most surprising example of misplaced mothering took place in Kenya the story of this Linus and Oryx has an unhappy ending but not for the reason you might think a newborn Oryx surely just minutes from being this Lions next meal but to the complete amazement of the Rangers who are monitoring the situation the lioness didn't try to eat it instead she cared for it as if it were her own young just like the cat with her ducklings a strong instinct to protect and nurture was overriding the predatory instinct to kill it many theories were put forward as to why she was behaving in this way and the consensus was that she was a young lioness who'd gone through some kind of traumatic experience involving being separated from her pride and as a result her mental state had led her to want to nurture this calf in some way but unfortunately the relationship came to a sudden end when the lioness took her eye off the calf for just a few moments a male lion pounced and killed it [Music] witnesses described her behavior as exactly that of a lioness who had lost her cubs heartbreaking to watch [Music] everyone thought that was the end of the story but the lioness went on to adopt not one but five more Oryx calves now none of the relationships lasted as long as the first one but this continuing fixation points to a traumatized animal desperate to nurture even if the young in question isn't her own species [Music] you

Channel: Real Wild

Views: 1,229,487

Rating: 4.9582109 out of 5

Keywords: nature documentary, full documentary, documentary movie, big cats, wildlife documentary, discovery channel, national geographic, natgeo wild, Nature documentaries - topic, Animals - topic, planet earth, david attenborough, Full Animal Documentary, cats, duck, duckling, baby ducks, kittens, cute animals, animal odd couples, farm, ireland, lion, gazelle, baby animals, nature, wildlife, cute as fluff, cat (animal), animal rescue, animal welfare, cat adopts ducks, kitten videos, wild

Id: K83BKNxgg7w

Length: 7min 58sec (478 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018