In a fortunate twist, shortly after baby ducklings were born, they fell into the care of a cat right after she gave birth to her kittens. This extraordinary and extremely odd tale is from an Irish family farm. This was recorded and it was a part of BBC’s “Animal Odd Couples” where the program is conducted by a biologist named Liz Bonnin. What causes these animals to connect outside their species with babies?
Bonnin follows the cat and duckling story with a short but bizarre narrative of a lioness who adopted a newborn oryx which is a lovely story of a predator and a prey in the wilderness. A cat, a three-kitten mother, adopted three orphaned ducks and took care of them along with their own offspring. Ronan and Emma Lally, from Clare Co Offaly in Ireland, were the members of the family that took care of the cat. They said that they were surprised to see that their cat has taken the ducklings under their care instead of causing them harm.
At first, they were concerned about the ducklings, and they had kept a close eye on the cat and the ducklings because they were not sure of what they saw. But with time they had learned that the cat meant no harm to these ducklings, and she was only taking care of them. Ronan said that "The minute the cat lay down the three ducklings run underneath her. She started to purr,"
The pet owners from Ireland say that the cat thinks that the ducklings are her kittens too and that cat's maternal instinct had led her to just keep her paw around them which is extraordinary. "But the cat might suspect it when the ducklings will grow to be big and yellow" Ronan added.Cat mama adopts and cares for the three orphaned ducklings along with the three-kitten litter of her own.
When the ducklings grew up, they immediately became much freer than the kittens, but their devotion for their adoptive mother was always the same. They have always been a huge loving family. You can watch their amazing story here.