A same-sex flamingo couple are raising an abandoned chick and the adorable trio has become the envy of social media.
After its biological parents vacated their nest, keepers at Whipsnade Zoo initially placed the lone American flamingo egg in an incubator to increase its chance of survival.
But keen to give the chick another shot at family life, the team picked out devoted dads, Hudson and Blaze, to become its adopted parents.
The couple were already taking “excellent care” of their shared nest, and keepers quickly decided they were the best candidates among the whole “flamboyance” (or group of flamingos) for the job.
The egg was placed in Hudson and Blaze’s nest, and the pair sat tight on it until it hatched.
Keepers at the Bedforshire zoo said the pair have taken “exemplary care” of the fluffy chick ever since.
Bird team leader, Tim Savage said, explained how flamingos tend to work together “as a monogamous pair” to look after their eggs and subsequent chicks.
“Hudson and Blaze were the clear choice for the incubated egg, as they have always proved to be ideal parents,” he added.
Once the chick had hatched, the dedicated couple sat with it for two weeks, keeping it warm and protecting it from other flamingos, who Savage said “often squabble and shove around different nest sites.”
He continued: “Fluffy grey flamingo chicks are fed with bright red “crop milk,” which is made by both male and female parents. It is made in the linings of their digestive tract, and contains fat, protein and blood cells. You can often spot the new parents in a group, because they give so much of their own pigment to their chicks that they almost turn white!”
The same hormone that regulates milk production in mammals regulates the production of “crop milk.” It is stimulated by the mother or father’s experience of sitting on an egg and watching the chick hatch.
Footage of the family whiling away the hours together has delighted social media users, with one person writing on Twitter: “Gay flamingo dads cheering me up today.”
“Queer was always here,” another added.
Whipsnade Zoo said it had encountered same-sex flamingo pairs and trios before, adding that penguins had also been known to form same-sex pairings during breeding season.
