Tripod The Three Legged Duck's baby in the egg
Like 1 Dislike 0 Published on 3 Mar 2013
Tripod The Three Legged Duck was hatched on April 25, 2011. Although the majority of ducks with extra limbs do not survive, Tripod has not only survived, she has come to live a rather amazingly normal life. For a while, her eggs were not normal in that they did not have the usual coating and therefore could not hatch. She has incubated and hatched some of her sister's eggs but never any of her own. We've tried to incubate her eggs before, but they were either infertile or barely began developing and died. This time, her eggs are quite well developed, and her embryos look very strong. We can see this view of the babies through something called candling. Usually a device called a candler is used to shine a light through egg shell. I'm just using a regular flashlight, but the results are the same. The first egg in the video is one of Fluff's (Tripod's sister). The 2nd one is Tripod's. These eggs have been in the incubator for 8 days so the embryos are still very early in the developmental stages. The majority of the "movement" is actually the heart beat and the blood that is flowing through the vessels forming around the embryo. There are 6 eggs in the incubator that are Tripod's. The rest belong to Tripod's sister, Fluff. If you'd like to see the other videos of Tripod The Three Legged Duck, just go to my channel to view them. She is truly an anomaly! According to the London Museum of Natural History, a three legged duck happens in only approximately 1 out of 250 million ducklings. Since these eggs were fertilized by a brother, the chances of it recurring are much more likely. I know that sounds gross, but ducks really don't care, and as long as you only go 1 level, it usually doesn't cause problems...although, it may be hard to tell since a third leg is rather unusual anyway. :)
I can't wait to see the babies! Just 3 more weeks!!!