A man accidentally became a mother to 13 ducklings when their eggs hatched and he was the first moving object they saw.

 

The process, known as imprinting¹, is a form of attachment² that the ducklings normally use to identify their mother. However, the mother of these ducklings was apparently³ killed before the eggs hatched.

 

In an attempt to save the little ducks, the man took the 13 eggs and placed them in an incubator（孵卵器）. The eggs hatched, the ducklings first saw the man, named Rick, and now they are attached. This is evidenced in a new viral video with more than 128,000 views.

 

"She never came back," Rick says in the video of the ducklings' mother. "There's feathers everywhere. The 30-second clip of the ducklings following Rick around was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday by his neighbor Matthew Sargent. A link to the video also found its way to Reddit via Sargent's daughter, Carlisle.

 

"I asked my dad about what my neighbor plans to do with the ducklings, and apparently he is going to keep them at his home for a while, and train them to use the bathroom in one part of his yard," she commented on Reddit. "My dad said also my neighbor is gonna wait til their oil comes in and then take them to live in the ponds/little lakes in our neighborhood."

 

Rick will probably be cleaning up more than just feathers over the next few weeks, but he will also have a new reason to celebrate Mother's Day.

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