Two male flamingos are raising an abandoned chick as their own after it was rejected by its real parents. The proud dads named Hudson and Blaze took the little egg under their wings at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo.
The lone American flamingo egg was initially placed in an incubator after the parents ditched the nest. But keepers at the Bedfordshire zoo moved it into one shared by the two males to give it the best chance in life.
Keepers rightly thought the male birds were the best candidates amongst the whole 'flamboyance'. They sat tight on the egg until it hatched and have been taking exemplary care of their new baby ever since.
Bird team leader Tim Savage, said: "Flamingos usually work together, as a monogamous pair, to care for 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.
"After the chick hatched in their nest, they sat with it for two weeks, keeping it warm and protecting it from other flamingos, who often squabble and shove around different nest sites." Their chick is currently being raised on 'crop milk' produced by the same sex couple using the same hormone that regulates milk in mammals.
It is stimulated by the mother or father’s experience of sitting on an egg and watching the chick hatch. Tim said: "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."
Same sex flamingo pairs have been encountered before at the zoo, as have trios whereby a mixture of male and female birds share one nest. Penguins are also known to form same sex pairings during breeding season.
