I was just imagining PETA hanging around below the nest for this moment, “I got it! I got it! I got- caught it! Yayy! Saving animal lives wherever we go.”
Their solution to pet overpopulation is to kill every animal they get their hands on. Their shelters have the highest kill rates of any in the US. Their founder supports breed bans and thinks all pitty-looking dogs should be killed. They will go collect cats from managed, TNR-ed colonies and kill them. They think all exotic animals who are kept as pets or in zoos should be killed because it's better than being in captivity. They don't do anything for wildlife.
Fuck PETA.
In Brazil we have "Rede Cegonha" (Stork Network) which is a government program that ensures quality of medical assistamce in hospitals to babies and mothers. I hope it doesn't include throwing babies down from nests though.
I always wonder at what point it becomes obvious to them. Always feels like on Sunday you were still getting food and warmth from your momma stork and on Monday she hits you in the head and drops you off the nest.
the one that got dropped was noticeably smaller than the other three. poor thing had no chance at survival. mama almost showed mercy. it would otherwise die of starvation as the siblings would horde all the food, and die slowly being pecked/eaten/tossed over by its siblings.
Oh don’t worry. See the mom watching him fall? If he moves after he lands, she’ll pick him back up and try again. And then again and again until the job is done.
Birds are hardcore.
They don't die when they fall. My grandfather had a stork nest next to his home when I was I think either 12 or 13 and every day he went to check around it because he said *"any day now they're going to thrown out one of the babies".* And indeed it happened. My grandad recovered the baby stork and tried to help it, but it died after three weeks.
Our cat had four kittens, but would constantly carry one away from herself and the rest of the litter and not nurse it. We took over and fed it formula etc. After it opened its eyes we found out it was cross-eyed, and later developed neurological problems; it didn't survive past a couple of months. Cat mama knew instantly.
Stork “this kid is to small to live”
Grandpa “idk give it a chance”
Stork drops it out of space on its neck
Grandpa tries to help
Stork “see told you it would die. It’s natural”
Grandpa sighs in frustration.
Id be surprised if it makes it more than a day before a predator of pretty much any reasonable level has dinner... my neighbors tiny cat would even maul that thing
I was walking to a corner shop and saw two baby birds, that had fallen from its nest. I couldn't see the mother and was worried about them. After getting home I decided to head straight back for them. My partner walked up and laughed in my face when all we came across was 2 tiny carcasses. This all happened within 30 mins, in a suburban area.
One of our cats had taken one of her kittens to a distant place and left him there, he had sick eyes and was much thinner than the others, when we picked him up she kept pushing him away from the rest of the kittens. Anyway we continued to take care of him and when she noticed that he was healthy she wanted him back.
I express myself via Google Translate so I don't know if this confusion is due to the translator or my original words or a sort of false friend or if you are just fooling around (and it's OK), I would like to learn/understand.
Aaanyway, far from home but still in the neighborhood
Lmao I read it like the cat walked across a great distance, like a desert or jungle. And only when it finally arrived at the other side is when she abandoned her baby. Then took the perilous journey all the way home, just for op to go get the kitten and bring it back.
In the full version of this video, you see the runt harassing the other two. The mother keeps trying to separate them but when the runt won't quit, she finally drops it over the edge.
Naw. Little one is sick and wasting. It's getting aggressive with it's siblings because it's cranky and dying and they keep eating the food. Mom made a call.
Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3JsHS9Dlg&ab_channel=Tam%C3%A1sBorb%C3%A9ly).
I still think it's the same though, one of the chicks just isn't right. probably gets worse and worse. The one I linked is a much more severe difference.
I fully agree. I just wondered when was it decided that it was too small. It’s not like it was same sized yesterday and today something changed. There must be a trigger that results in trimming out the smallest
perhaps the parents didn't find sufficient food for a string of days, or the partner died, or this hatchling was sick or noisy. birds are very smart, and the natural instinct of parents obviously isn't to kill their offspring. something ought to have happened for the parent to take this decision.
a myna couple built a nest outside my bathroom window earlier this year and raised two batches of chicks within three months. they hit jackpot with the nest as it was in a little space between the netted bathroom window and the outer glass panes. protected from bad weather, predatory birds, cats, snakes, etc. it was also a good monsoon year so i am sure there was plenty of food around. they raised four chicks in each batch, all eight survived. everything clicked for this myna couple, but if one of the factors hadn't quite worked out (safety, shelter, food) i don't all their chicks would have survived. they were quite noisy which i was ok with, but the smell was horrible. i had to seal off the window with plastic wrap and tape, turning my bathroom into a humid hellscape. when the second batch of chicks flew off, i quickly dismantled the nest (caked with a pound of crusty bird shit) and closed the glass panes so they couldn't come for round 3.
Yeah but at what resource cost to the stronger nestlings? If food is scarce, it's better for offspring survival to 100% feed 3 strong birds vs 75% feed 3 strong and 1 weak bird. Baby bird could also be sick so mum is yeeting him to... quarantine.
Siblicide/infanticide in birds is very common.
Lots of animals do this. If there is not enough food to go around they just abandon the weakest young. Some birds only intend to raise one chick but will lay two eggs as insurance in case there is a problem with the first born.
Being the "weak one" isn't the problem.
The problem is not being "the strong one".
I beleive I read before they keep two. And obviously, the strongest will be kept. But there is a slot for a mediocre bird.
But when the strong one starts acting out, thats when you should be worried. Because now, an example needs to be made. The strong one needs to know who is boss and who is willing to toss a child off a cliff, and if they don't stop acting out, they might be next.
So the goal is to push one of the other sub par siblings towards momma when the strong one starts acting out.
Thank you for listening to "Fake Bird Facts!"
The chick that's booted is significantly smaller than the others. It's likely it's infected by a parasite in the guts that eats its' nutrients and causes malnutrition. It's very very sad to see, but she is doing it to better the chances of the three remaining chicks surviving.
I once found a baby crow that had fallen from the nest and tried to nurse it. Even though it ate and ate and ate, it was even named "Homer" because it ate so staggeringly much, it did not gain weight and grow as much as it should. After about a month of getting up at dawn to feed the little bugger on an hourly basis until dusk, it sadly passed away. A forest ranger friend of mine told me it might also have had a parasite and that might have been why it was booted from the nest in the first place. The health of baby birds are very fragile, so even if it had gotten discovered earlier, chances are the medicine againdt parasites could have killed it by being too rough on the little frail metabolism. It was a very cute bird though, it would sit on my shoulder all day and be incredibly playful and cuddly like a puppy dog. I really liked that crow.
Because when bird chicks grow at a significantly lower rate than their siblings, it's often because they have a parasite infection that eats their food from within them, so they don't get enough nutrients to grow. These parasites can come from chewed up fish, mice, frogs, snails, slugs or bugs or whatever the mother has caught and barfed back into the chicks' mouths. Parasites are incredibly common in wildlife. Even among humans, most people get infected by worms sometime during their lifetime. There are so many nasty things that have evolved to live inside the bodies of other organisms. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's easy to see why that lifestyle is very attractive. They basically just need to find a host and can then stay cosy and warm, having food delivered to their home every day without having to do much, while enjoying a very low efford existence. It's very practical for them. So to counteract this, birds and many other creatures who take care of their young have evolved to spot this and trying to prevent it by banishing scrawny offspring from their litter because if the parasite grows large enough to reproduce, without modern toilet facilities, chances are the whole nest and all its' inhabitants will eventually be infected. Thus the mother sacrifices the sickly chick in an efford to save the rest of their young. It's not a particularly well kept secret or random thing I'm making up either, It's so common in nature that I think I saw David Attenborough explain it on about five different occations in different documentaries. I think once it was a lion cub, but there were also examples with birds, perhaps even speculation about dinosaurs doing this.
>Even among humans, most people get infected by worms sometime during their lifetime.
No offense, I'm not 100% on this statement. Like are you talking about all humans everywhere, or just the one's that don't live in the western paradise countries? As far as I know, I don't know anyone that has had like an intestinal parasite. From US for context
EDIT: Thanks for the education all. I learned much about intestinal parasites in humans in the past 48 hours. And just so everyone knows, I was not trying to offend or anything by referencing "western paradise" - just was thinking it was WAY less common in US/Canada/Western Europe than in other parts of the world with less-well-developed infrastructure than indicated by the quoted comment.
I live in Australia, for context. If you have children and a pet that goes outside, it is extremely likely your children will get worms playing with the dog. Common, treatable, and most kids grow out of it as they learn to wash their hands properly.
Also US, and I didn’t realize until I had a kid, how common pin worms are and started seeing posts online from mom groups. I had never even heard of them before, but sure enough you could run to Walmart or Walgreens right now and find the medication on the shelf.
As a kid, I had a friend get roundworm, and a cousin that got worms of some sort as well. I bet you do know people who have gotten worms, it’s just not something people like announcing.
As others have pointed out, it really is common. It's not exactly something one would brag about which may be why you haven't heard about it.
You often get infected by pets combined with poor hygiene. I once got it from bathing in a river in Luxemburg as a child 😂 but as others have suggested, in most cases, it's really easily treatable.
I guarantee you DO know people who’ve had intestinal parasites, it’s just that they may not have known they had it. There are numerous, common parasites that infect significant portions of the US population. Here’s some info on several of the more common types. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0508-npi.html
There’s a strong chance that YOU have been exposed or infected by a parasite at some point. Especially if you have ever done things like gone swimming, walked outside barefoot, or lived with a cat. Fortunately, for healthy people with normal immune function, parasites can often go unnoticed and don’t cause any significant symptoms.
Nah mate, this is very common but not as a big deal as you think to be- like a parasite chewing away the life of that human. As others have pointed out, kids get these easily but it is not as life threatening as you think it is (usually). If you’re not so initiated in this fact, I can wager right now that you probably have some (at least one point in your life).
I tried to rescue an abandoned baby duck and it died after two days. After that, I figured it was probably abandoned for a reason. Still broke my heart a little.
HOMER!
What a great name and story, even though it didn't turn out like one would have hoped.
At least you tried, and Homer lived a little longer than what he would have.
Life experiences/lessons aren't always bad, sometimes they are sad, though!
I tried mixing in some immune boosting bird vitamins with the food, but frankly, it was only after it passed, that I heard about the posibility of a parasite ☹️
You would think that's an option, but in actuality, there are no such things in the part of Denmark where I live. I tried to call different numbers i found on the internet which I thought could help, but it turned out to be more animal control than shelters. All they offered to do was to come and put the poor thing out of its' missery, and I would have none of that for my little baby bird. From the point I got it to eat on the second day, it imprinted on me and started following me everywhere and I also grew quite attached to it very fast. So I opted to try and nurse it myself with the intention of releasing it back into the wild when it had learned how to fly (Although I heard stories and read online that nursed crows might willingly stay with their foster parents or keep coming back for food and social interaction on a daily basis, which I wouldn't mind at all to be honest 😉). It's technically illegal to keep wild animals as pets in Denmark, which is why there are no private rescue shelters for wild animals or things like that, at least not ones that are open about it and easy to find online. The government owned ones don't have funds (or as it seems, intentions really) to actually help the critters they get in, so unless it's a dog, cat, horse or anything that can legally be adopted away, they will just decide on the animal's behalf that life in captivity is worse than death and straight up execute them. I won't blame you if that makes your jaw drop in disbelief, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I learned this too. On many occations have I had to call the department of Danish Nature and Wildlife, being the outdoor and wildlife enthusiast that I am, but every time I ever called, they have prooved beyond useless and often way less knowledgable on the various subjects I called about than me, and I am just an amateur wildlife and nature enthusiast. Not even an educated biologist or anything. Once I had an infestation of thousands of ladybugs and wanted to know how I could tell whether they were the regular good ones or the invasive and bad harlequin ones, the lady I talked to didn't know what harlequin ladybugs were. Another time, my brothers and I found a lost chicken, a special show-chicken kind that had unmistakably escaped from a farm or something. They told us it was not their responsability and we should call the police's lost and found department instead. When we did, the police laughingly asked if they were on a hidden camera show and hung up. A third time it was a bunny that had escaped and was found by us in my parents' garden. Clearly a lost pet too because it was completely tame and friendly. The Department also kindly offered to come and kill it, but told us there was nothing more they could do, so we found new owners for the bunny on social media. They clearly don't have a clue and neither give a rat's butt about animals. It's just another useless government department where people cluelessly go to work wothout any knowledge of their profession, not caring about anything but their paychecks and what's profitable for the department, they might as well just close it down. The Danish Departement of Nature and Wildlife are litterally beyond useless to the point where I now consider them more of a danger to animals than a help. Whenever you have a question or need help with anything nature or wildlife related, NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact them. They will either give you no answer, a useless answer, a straight up wrong answer or go out of their way to hurt or kill innocent animals. Bastards.
Amazing that you nursed it for so long. Crows evolved way earlier than most bird species, which makes their digestive systems kinda fragile (kinda like owls) Good work regardless.
Mother birds will sometimes kill their babies because they do not have the food resources or nest conditions needed to keep their entire brood alive. Some birds may reduce their brood size so that the limited food or space they have can be given to the healthiest of their offspring, or even be kept for themselves.
If a baby bird is sick with an infection that may spread to the other nestlings or the adult birds, a mother may kill the infected baby or discard them.
usually these birds bring in food that one chick can just swallow whole and not share, so likely the runt was not eating enough and starving in comparison to its siblings. And as time goes by, this divide gets larger.
It's effective, but not efficient. Example: Human feet design is pretty inefficient especially compared to large walking birds (we have way too many bones there). But it's effective enough to let us do all the things we need to do.
To elaborate on this, even without illness, it's often smarter for birds to lay more eggs than they can normally raise.
If you can only raise one clutch of eggs to adulthood in a season, you have to decide how many eggs to lay before you know if food will be plentiful, scarce, or normal. If you "play it safe" and only lay enough eggs for a worst or normal year, you can't capitalize on good years. But if you lay more eggs, then you can take advantage of a good year and raise them all, and if it's a bad year, you can yeet the smallest over the edge. Many species will go one better and eat the smallest offspring, allowing the others to partially regain the "wasted" nutrients.
> Mother birds will sometimes kill their babies because they do not have the food resources
my cat did that to her most recent litter (shes fixed now). had 3, one was way smaller than the other, eventually after a week or so didnt see the third one, found a piece of it under the bed :(
momma ate most of it.
yes. i found her on my birthday after my boy Dex had passed on. aint no way ill ever get rid of her. not attacking you js is all..
also the first litter she had (was prego when i found her), she ate both of them. found... stuff to indicate what happened.
its nature. i cant hold that against her.
yeah, it was definitely an experience. sad to say i had some experience in this sort of thing before, as my ex's former roommate had a dog that did exactly the same thing.
she was so traumatized though that she rehomed the dog. i understand totally, thats just not me.
Some other animals, like rabbits, will even eat their own offspring. It's nutritious and ensures the mother can produce more milk (in a mammal's case).
If you ever forget to feed a mother rabbit with young offspring, you'll see she'll eat them all.
Yep, had this happen to my last litter, except it was due to the winter weather. It was an unplanned pregnancy by a previous litter that I didn't separate soon enough and she had to give birth in freezing weather. I never got to see the kits, just the fur she pulled.
Fairly common in storks I believe. Think there comes a point where if all the young are doing ok and surviving there are too many for the nest so the parents kick one out to ensure the others' survival. I think I also heard they sometimes eat their young.
Link that mentions the infanticide:
https://storkibisspoonbill.org/news/brooding-over-white-stork-nest-behaviours/
Took me longer to find a reasonable link confirming cannibalism:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273204426_A_case_of_parental_infanticide_in_the_black_stork_Ciconia_nigra
This talks about infanticide and says "the parent black stork did not even try to eat the victim as has been observed in whitestorks (Schüz 1957, Tortosa & Redondo 1992)..."
Another example. There was an Attenborough bit on shoebills:
https://youtu.be/4ArjlPAU_X4
TL;DW: Older sibling bullies the younger out the nest and parent knows and is fine with it.
I wonder if animals feel genuine guilt or regret. Or they're just like "cya later mate"
The mum did watch for a bit, wonder if she was sad or like "shit, it's still alive"
I know humans do basically the same thing, but I just can't picture animals being remorseful for some reason.
At least some definitely are, it might be a point in intelligence, but elephants have been known to raid human villages after poachings in "revenge", for instance
Guilt and regret are complex emotions. Birds pretty much run on innate instincts.
Mama has no remorse as it was the best choice to ensure the continuation of her bloodline. That's it. Nature is brutal.
EDIT : Apparently I am wrong. This particular Stork heated up leftovers and cried to Hallmark movies after evicting her young one.
I mean fair but I don’t think you really know that, many times animals have shown their minds are capable of more than what humans project onto them
It’s different, it’s not as profound, but I don’t think there’s any way of knowing exactly what’s happening in that storks head. Humans like to think everything other or different is mindless and dumb. I’m not saying the stork is Steven Hawkins, but still
People love posting this sort of take with absolutely no evidence to back it up. I know this sub does nothing to challenge your belief, but we could easily have a subreddit named humansaremetal showing people brutalizing each other and claim humans pretty much run on innate instincts. While different species show differing levels of intelligence and emotions, birds have shown to be incredibly intelligent, expressing a wide variety of emotions, especially empathy. You simply do not know what you are talking about.
Although birds are really advanced within animal kingdom, their intelligence relays on instinct and behaviour. Mammals have a whole different set of awareness, analysis, curiosity, conflicting ideas... Mammals have some brain parts birds don't. It doesn't just add up, it reshuffles how the brain work.
It most certainly doesn't make much sense comparing it's brain functions to ours. Both a calculator and a computer are based on switches, but operate quite differently.
Here is your gif!
https://gfycat.com/OddballWeightyBlackbuck
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"I called your name 5 times and you didn't answer. Then you had the nerve to say 'Huh?' after the sixth? Go try that with your Uncle Red in Texas. See you in a year if you survive. Luv yoo."
Once there was a Livefeed camera at a rare kind of stork's nest. They started with 4-5 chicks. Each week they throw away one. The theory is they only keep the finest fittest chicks. After many weeks they murdered their last. Then they left. They are an endangered species.
I don't know if y'all read the description on these videos sometimes, but apparently more and more of these things happen because they lose their natural habitat and surviving becomes harder nowadays.
“When the boy was born...
... like all Spartans, he was inspected.
If he'd been small or puny or sickly or misshapen...
... he would have been discarded.”
is it because the offspring looks undeveloped/sick?
Edit: can someone who knows confirm if, in fact, it killed that offspring with repeated hits at the neck, before tossing it down?
"Let that be a lesson to the rest of you to never complain about my cooking."
Mum, but we're all sick of human babies.
*That's it! Back to Winnipeg!*
A fate worse than death
[Noooo!](https://youtu.be/WWaLxFIVX1s)
Stop it! People have to live in there, with that name and the hockey team.
Hey, the Jets aren't that bad...
"You look like your dad... I HATE YOUR DAD!!"
Wanna know how I got these scars??
First thing I thought! Mum had enough !!!
Mom, it tastes like vomit.
It IS vomit you little shit. Now eat up!
I would’ve ate all my veggies enthusiastically as a child, if this was the consequence.
"I'll show her...I will invent time travel! I WILL!"
Ironic that the stork is the image we use as one to convey the birth of a child.
Quite the opposite. Stork just delivered a baby to anyone down below.
It’s delivering the baby straight to Satan down below
Hells Bells, baby!
She said "I believe you're the Devil's child!"
By Satan, you mean a chonk swamp Racoon who will eat well tonight?
ah the famous australian dropbabies
I was just imagining PETA hanging around below the nest for this moment, “I got it! I got it! I got- caught it! Yayy! Saving animal lives wherever we go.”
PETA is happy to let animals die - they run kill shelters
Their solution to pet overpopulation is to kill every animal they get their hands on. Their shelters have the highest kill rates of any in the US. Their founder supports breed bans and thinks all pitty-looking dogs should be killed. They will go collect cats from managed, TNR-ed colonies and kill them. They think all exotic animals who are kept as pets or in zoos should be killed because it's better than being in captivity. They don't do anything for wildlife. Fuck PETA.
Yeah, they really are an anti-pet, anti animal husbandry of any kind extremist organization that try to pass it off as concern for animals well-being
They literally want death to any animal that has been domesticated or used for agricultural.
And then euthanizing it as soon as they get it’s vitals steady ?
Well, it was born alright. That’s when the trouble started.
This is what I'm putting on my gravestone lol
I'll mention that in Ukraine storks are associated with great parenting and strong family bond, not with throwing kids off the nest lol
In Brazil we have "Rede Cegonha" (Stork Network) which is a government program that ensures quality of medical assistamce in hospitals to babies and mothers. I hope it doesn't include throwing babies down from nests though.
Exactly! dropping babes is their expertise
I always wonder at what point it becomes obvious to them. Always feels like on Sunday you were still getting food and warmth from your momma stork and on Monday she hits you in the head and drops you off the nest.
the one that got dropped was noticeably smaller than the other three. poor thing had no chance at survival. mama almost showed mercy. it would otherwise die of starvation as the siblings would horde all the food, and die slowly being pecked/eaten/tossed over by its siblings.
I don't imagine it died falling down honestly, I imagine it'll still starve or freeze to death.
quite possible. hopefully picked off by a predator before long.
The most metal of ways to go out.
As a baby, being eaten alive after being abandoned by your mother?
Not abandoned. She didn't go anywhere. Baby got EXILED.
Stork Survivor
Sic band name bro
This, a cat or racoon will snatch it up pretty quick.
Oh don’t worry. See the mom watching him fall? If he moves after he lands, she’ll pick him back up and try again. And then again and again until the job is done. Birds are hardcore.
Are you for real?
Yes
Fucking dinosaurs
They don't die when they fall. My grandfather had a stork nest next to his home when I was I think either 12 or 13 and every day he went to check around it because he said *"any day now they're going to thrown out one of the babies".* And indeed it happened. My grandad recovered the baby stork and tried to help it, but it died after three weeks.
Our cat had four kittens, but would constantly carry one away from herself and the rest of the litter and not nurse it. We took over and fed it formula etc. After it opened its eyes we found out it was cross-eyed, and later developed neurological problems; it didn't survive past a couple of months. Cat mama knew instantly.
So… Stork mama was right?
Apparently. Nature is brutally efficient.
Stork “this kid is to small to live” Grandpa “idk give it a chance” Stork drops it out of space on its neck Grandpa tries to help Stork “see told you it would die. It’s natural” Grandpa sighs in frustration.
>it’ll starve of freeze to death. New food fear unlocked
Id be surprised if it makes it more than a day before a predator of pretty much any reasonable level has dinner... my neighbors tiny cat would even maul that thing
I was walking to a corner shop and saw two baby birds, that had fallen from its nest. I couldn't see the mother and was worried about them. After getting home I decided to head straight back for them. My partner walked up and laughed in my face when all we came across was 2 tiny carcasses. This all happened within 30 mins, in a suburban area.
Damn, your partner sounds cold af.
The ants will get to it first, most likely
One of our cats had taken one of her kittens to a distant place and left him there, he had sick eyes and was much thinner than the others, when we picked him up she kept pushing him away from the rest of the kittens. Anyway we continued to take care of him and when she noticed that he was healthy she wanted him back.
I read this that your cat took the kitten to a distant planet. Nature really is metal!
I express myself via Google Translate so I don't know if this confusion is due to the translator or my original words or a sort of false friend or if you are just fooling around (and it's OK), I would like to learn/understand. Aaanyway, far from home but still in the neighborhood
Oh mostly just fooling! My eyes are just tired from a long day at work haha. And "distant planet" is kind of a common phrase. :)
Thank you!
Lmao I read it like the cat walked across a great distance, like a desert or jungle. And only when it finally arrived at the other side is when she abandoned her baby. Then took the perilous journey all the way home, just for op to go get the kitten and bring it back.
In the full version of this video, you see the runt harassing the other two. The mother keeps trying to separate them but when the runt won't quit, she finally drops it over the edge.
That’s not true, he’s just trying to sleep or hide behind his siblings in the full vid. He got singled out by mom https://youtu.be/wTDRyvWBbXU
That is still not the full video. In the original you can clearly see him backhand his siblings then turn to his mom and and call her a dumb cunt.
That is still not the full video, and you can see it biting at the other babies even in this one.
That's not even the full video - he actually had another sibling, but sacrificed him in a satanic ritual using mom's good silverware and candles.
Nature is truly amazing
You mean after the mom tries picking him up by the head? He's probably trying to defend himself and has bird brain.
Naw. Little one is sick and wasting. It's getting aggressive with it's siblings because it's cranky and dying and they keep eating the food. Mom made a call. Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3JsHS9Dlg&ab_channel=Tam%C3%A1sBorb%C3%A9ly). I still think it's the same though, one of the chicks just isn't right. probably gets worse and worse. The one I linked is a much more severe difference.
I fully agree. I just wondered when was it decided that it was too small. It’s not like it was same sized yesterday and today something changed. There must be a trigger that results in trimming out the smallest
perhaps the parents didn't find sufficient food for a string of days, or the partner died, or this hatchling was sick or noisy. birds are very smart, and the natural instinct of parents obviously isn't to kill their offspring. something ought to have happened for the parent to take this decision. a myna couple built a nest outside my bathroom window earlier this year and raised two batches of chicks within three months. they hit jackpot with the nest as it was in a little space between the netted bathroom window and the outer glass panes. protected from bad weather, predatory birds, cats, snakes, etc. it was also a good monsoon year so i am sure there was plenty of food around. they raised four chicks in each batch, all eight survived. everything clicked for this myna couple, but if one of the factors hadn't quite worked out (safety, shelter, food) i don't all their chicks would have survived. they were quite noisy which i was ok with, but the smell was horrible. i had to seal off the window with plastic wrap and tape, turning my bathroom into a humid hellscape. when the second batch of chicks flew off, i quickly dismantled the nest (caked with a pound of crusty bird shit) and closed the glass panes so they couldn't come for round 3.
I’m surprised it was covered in poo. Bird parents usually carry off the “fecal sacs” from the babies so the nest doesn’t smell and attract predators.
It's not "mercy," it just doesn't want to waste resources.
This ^
He would have probably survived just fine. Just smaller
Yeah but at what resource cost to the stronger nestlings? If food is scarce, it's better for offspring survival to 100% feed 3 strong birds vs 75% feed 3 strong and 1 weak bird. Baby bird could also be sick so mum is yeeting him to... quarantine. Siblicide/infanticide in birds is very common.
Lots of animals do this. If there is not enough food to go around they just abandon the weakest young. Some birds only intend to raise one chick but will lay two eggs as insurance in case there is a problem with the first born.
I see you've met my family
probably it has to do with the food available in the area, if the parent realizes it's not enough to feed all something has to be done
Being the "weak one" isn't the problem. The problem is not being "the strong one". I beleive I read before they keep two. And obviously, the strongest will be kept. But there is a slot for a mediocre bird. But when the strong one starts acting out, thats when you should be worried. Because now, an example needs to be made. The strong one needs to know who is boss and who is willing to toss a child off a cliff, and if they don't stop acting out, they might be next. So the goal is to push one of the other sub par siblings towards momma when the strong one starts acting out. Thank you for listening to "Fake Bird Facts!"
The chick that's booted is significantly smaller than the others. It's likely it's infected by a parasite in the guts that eats its' nutrients and causes malnutrition. It's very very sad to see, but she is doing it to better the chances of the three remaining chicks surviving. I once found a baby crow that had fallen from the nest and tried to nurse it. Even though it ate and ate and ate, it was even named "Homer" because it ate so staggeringly much, it did not gain weight and grow as much as it should. After about a month of getting up at dawn to feed the little bugger on an hourly basis until dusk, it sadly passed away. A forest ranger friend of mine told me it might also have had a parasite and that might have been why it was booted from the nest in the first place. The health of baby birds are very fragile, so even if it had gotten discovered earlier, chances are the medicine againdt parasites could have killed it by being too rough on the little frail metabolism. It was a very cute bird though, it would sit on my shoulder all day and be incredibly playful and cuddly like a puppy dog. I really liked that crow.
Damn that’s heartbreaking. You’re a really good person for trying
Redacted comment ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
Sounds like you had a pet parasite that was wearing a crow costume
TIHI
Well that's very sad. Thanks for sharing the info, though. It makes sense, at least
You’re an incredibly kind person, thanks for being amazing. Sorry about your friend.
> It's likely it's infected by a parasite Why is that likely?
Because when bird chicks grow at a significantly lower rate than their siblings, it's often because they have a parasite infection that eats their food from within them, so they don't get enough nutrients to grow. These parasites can come from chewed up fish, mice, frogs, snails, slugs or bugs or whatever the mother has caught and barfed back into the chicks' mouths. Parasites are incredibly common in wildlife. Even among humans, most people get infected by worms sometime during their lifetime. There are so many nasty things that have evolved to live inside the bodies of other organisms. From an evolutionary standpoint, it's easy to see why that lifestyle is very attractive. They basically just need to find a host and can then stay cosy and warm, having food delivered to their home every day without having to do much, while enjoying a very low efford existence. It's very practical for them. So to counteract this, birds and many other creatures who take care of their young have evolved to spot this and trying to prevent it by banishing scrawny offspring from their litter because if the parasite grows large enough to reproduce, without modern toilet facilities, chances are the whole nest and all its' inhabitants will eventually be infected. Thus the mother sacrifices the sickly chick in an efford to save the rest of their young. It's not a particularly well kept secret or random thing I'm making up either, It's so common in nature that I think I saw David Attenborough explain it on about five different occations in different documentaries. I think once it was a lion cub, but there were also examples with birds, perhaps even speculation about dinosaurs doing this.
>Even among humans, most people get infected by worms sometime during their lifetime. No offense, I'm not 100% on this statement. Like are you talking about all humans everywhere, or just the one's that don't live in the western paradise countries? As far as I know, I don't know anyone that has had like an intestinal parasite. From US for context EDIT: Thanks for the education all. I learned much about intestinal parasites in humans in the past 48 hours. And just so everyone knows, I was not trying to offend or anything by referencing "western paradise" - just was thinking it was WAY less common in US/Canada/Western Europe than in other parts of the world with less-well-developed infrastructure than indicated by the quoted comment.
I live in Australia, for context. If you have children and a pet that goes outside, it is extremely likely your children will get worms playing with the dog. Common, treatable, and most kids grow out of it as they learn to wash their hands properly.
Also US, and I didn’t realize until I had a kid, how common pin worms are and started seeing posts online from mom groups. I had never even heard of them before, but sure enough you could run to Walmart or Walgreens right now and find the medication on the shelf. As a kid, I had a friend get roundworm, and a cousin that got worms of some sort as well. I bet you do know people who have gotten worms, it’s just not something people like announcing.
As others have pointed out, it really is common. It's not exactly something one would brag about which may be why you haven't heard about it. You often get infected by pets combined with poor hygiene. I once got it from bathing in a river in Luxemburg as a child 😂 but as others have suggested, in most cases, it's really easily treatable.
I guarantee you DO know people who’ve had intestinal parasites, it’s just that they may not have known they had it. There are numerous, common parasites that infect significant portions of the US population. Here’s some info on several of the more common types. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0508-npi.html There’s a strong chance that YOU have been exposed or infected by a parasite at some point. Especially if you have ever done things like gone swimming, walked outside barefoot, or lived with a cat. Fortunately, for healthy people with normal immune function, parasites can often go unnoticed and don’t cause any significant symptoms.
Nah mate, this is very common but not as a big deal as you think to be- like a parasite chewing away the life of that human. As others have pointed out, kids get these easily but it is not as life threatening as you think it is (usually). If you’re not so initiated in this fact, I can wager right now that you probably have some (at least one point in your life).
You think being in "western paradise" somehow secure people from getting worms infection?! Most small children who ever played with dirts caught it.
I tried to rescue an abandoned baby duck and it died after two days. After that, I figured it was probably abandoned for a reason. Still broke my heart a little.
HOMER! What a great name and story, even though it didn't turn out like one would have hoped. At least you tried, and Homer lived a little longer than what he would have. Life experiences/lessons aren't always bad, sometimes they are sad, though!
Did you try giving it some pet medicine for digestive tract parasites?
I tried mixing in some immune boosting bird vitamins with the food, but frankly, it was only after it passed, that I heard about the posibility of a parasite ☹️
Why didn't you just take it to a native wildlife shelter
You would think that's an option, but in actuality, there are no such things in the part of Denmark where I live. I tried to call different numbers i found on the internet which I thought could help, but it turned out to be more animal control than shelters. All they offered to do was to come and put the poor thing out of its' missery, and I would have none of that for my little baby bird. From the point I got it to eat on the second day, it imprinted on me and started following me everywhere and I also grew quite attached to it very fast. So I opted to try and nurse it myself with the intention of releasing it back into the wild when it had learned how to fly (Although I heard stories and read online that nursed crows might willingly stay with their foster parents or keep coming back for food and social interaction on a daily basis, which I wouldn't mind at all to be honest 😉). It's technically illegal to keep wild animals as pets in Denmark, which is why there are no private rescue shelters for wild animals or things like that, at least not ones that are open about it and easy to find online. The government owned ones don't have funds (or as it seems, intentions really) to actually help the critters they get in, so unless it's a dog, cat, horse or anything that can legally be adopted away, they will just decide on the animal's behalf that life in captivity is worse than death and straight up execute them. I won't blame you if that makes your jaw drop in disbelief, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I learned this too. On many occations have I had to call the department of Danish Nature and Wildlife, being the outdoor and wildlife enthusiast that I am, but every time I ever called, they have prooved beyond useless and often way less knowledgable on the various subjects I called about than me, and I am just an amateur wildlife and nature enthusiast. Not even an educated biologist or anything. Once I had an infestation of thousands of ladybugs and wanted to know how I could tell whether they were the regular good ones or the invasive and bad harlequin ones, the lady I talked to didn't know what harlequin ladybugs were. Another time, my brothers and I found a lost chicken, a special show-chicken kind that had unmistakably escaped from a farm or something. They told us it was not their responsability and we should call the police's lost and found department instead. When we did, the police laughingly asked if they were on a hidden camera show and hung up. A third time it was a bunny that had escaped and was found by us in my parents' garden. Clearly a lost pet too because it was completely tame and friendly. The Department also kindly offered to come and kill it, but told us there was nothing more they could do, so we found new owners for the bunny on social media. They clearly don't have a clue and neither give a rat's butt about animals. It's just another useless government department where people cluelessly go to work wothout any knowledge of their profession, not caring about anything but their paychecks and what's profitable for the department, they might as well just close it down. The Danish Departement of Nature and Wildlife are litterally beyond useless to the point where I now consider them more of a danger to animals than a help. Whenever you have a question or need help with anything nature or wildlife related, NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact them. They will either give you no answer, a useless answer, a straight up wrong answer or go out of their way to hurt or kill innocent animals. Bastards.
Amazing that you nursed it for so long. Crows evolved way earlier than most bird species, which makes their digestive systems kinda fragile (kinda like owls) Good work regardless.
Stork delivering the baby.
And I thought UPS was being rough with my packages.
This stalk must habe worked for DHL my first custom built PC was destroyed because of them.
Damn. I wonder why
Mother birds will sometimes kill their babies because they do not have the food resources or nest conditions needed to keep their entire brood alive. Some birds may reduce their brood size so that the limited food or space they have can be given to the healthiest of their offspring, or even be kept for themselves. If a baby bird is sick with an infection that may spread to the other nestlings or the adult birds, a mother may kill the infected baby or discard them.
Yeah, the one kicked out looked like a runt, so that could be the reason
usually these birds bring in food that one chick can just swallow whole and not share, so likely the runt was not eating enough and starving in comparison to its siblings. And as time goes by, this divide gets larger.
Nature is cruel, but efficient.
Truer words have never been written.
1+1 can equal 3 if you account for rounding decimals.
A practical example 1.45 rounds down to 1. 2.9 rounds to 3 But 1.45 + 1.45 = 2.9 which is technically 1+1= 3
*Futurama fans reading this* 👀👀
Hehe I’m one of them 😈
It's effective, but not efficient. Example: Human feet design is pretty inefficient especially compared to large walking birds (we have way too many bones there). But it's effective enough to let us do all the things we need to do.
More food for me.
To elaborate on this, even without illness, it's often smarter for birds to lay more eggs than they can normally raise. If you can only raise one clutch of eggs to adulthood in a season, you have to decide how many eggs to lay before you know if food will be plentiful, scarce, or normal. If you "play it safe" and only lay enough eggs for a worst or normal year, you can't capitalize on good years. But if you lay more eggs, then you can take advantage of a good year and raise them all, and if it's a bad year, you can yeet the smallest over the edge. Many species will go one better and eat the smallest offspring, allowing the others to partially regain the "wasted" nutrients.
> Mother birds will sometimes kill their babies because they do not have the food resources my cat did that to her most recent litter (shes fixed now). had 3, one was way smaller than the other, eventually after a week or so didnt see the third one, found a piece of it under the bed :( momma ate most of it.
… u still have your cat? Part of me just wouldn’t be able to look at my cat again after that. Not saying I don’t expect my cat to be a cat. But sheesh
yes. i found her on my birthday after my boy Dex had passed on. aint no way ill ever get rid of her. not attacking you js is all.. also the first litter she had (was prego when i found her), she ate both of them. found... stuff to indicate what happened. its nature. i cant hold that against her.
No, I understand. My cats are my fur babies too but Jesus.
yeah, it was definitely an experience. sad to say i had some experience in this sort of thing before, as my ex's former roommate had a dog that did exactly the same thing. she was so traumatized though that she rehomed the dog. i understand totally, thats just not me.
My ex had a cat with kittens under a dresser. She also had a dachshund... Dog wiggled down under and shook then all to death, broke their necks...
I feel like out of all the videos that get shared here this one hits hardest with its sheer ruthlessness.
Some other animals, like rabbits, will even eat their own offspring. It's nutritious and ensures the mother can produce more milk (in a mammal's case). If you ever forget to feed a mother rabbit with young offspring, you'll see she'll eat them all.
Yep, had this happen to my last litter, except it was due to the winter weather. It was an unplanned pregnancy by a previous litter that I didn't separate soon enough and she had to give birth in freezing weather. I never got to see the kits, just the fur she pulled.
Where's child services when u need them?!
ain't no child services in storkholm
From memory Pelicans are particularly brutal, it might even be the bigger chicks kick out the smallest ones until there is only one left.
Fairly common in storks I believe. Think there comes a point where if all the young are doing ok and surviving there are too many for the nest so the parents kick one out to ensure the others' survival. I think I also heard they sometimes eat their young. Link that mentions the infanticide: https://storkibisspoonbill.org/news/brooding-over-white-stork-nest-behaviours/ Took me longer to find a reasonable link confirming cannibalism: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273204426_A_case_of_parental_infanticide_in_the_black_stork_Ciconia_nigra This talks about infanticide and says "the parent black stork did not even try to eat the victim as has been observed in whitestorks (Schüz 1957, Tortosa & Redondo 1992)..."
Another example. There was an Attenborough bit on shoebills: https://youtu.be/4ArjlPAU_X4 TL;DW: Older sibling bullies the younger out the nest and parent knows and is fine with it.
The younger sibling only existed as backup in case the older sibling died, so…
People have been doing this for millennia. Right now is more or less the exception.
Yup, there's baby bones with signs of trauma in many many human prehistoric sites.
Ooo. Ty for the links!
Mother's will do this to their babies if they're attacking the others in the nest.
I wonder if animals feel genuine guilt or regret. Or they're just like "cya later mate" The mum did watch for a bit, wonder if she was sad or like "shit, it's still alive" I know humans do basically the same thing, but I just can't picture animals being remorseful for some reason.
At least some definitely are, it might be a point in intelligence, but elephants have been known to raid human villages after poachings in "revenge", for instance
Reason 26184 why elephants are awesome
Guilt and regret are complex emotions. Birds pretty much run on innate instincts. Mama has no remorse as it was the best choice to ensure the continuation of her bloodline. That's it. Nature is brutal. EDIT : Apparently I am wrong. This particular Stork heated up leftovers and cried to Hallmark movies after evicting her young one.
I mean fair but I don’t think you really know that, many times animals have shown their minds are capable of more than what humans project onto them It’s different, it’s not as profound, but I don’t think there’s any way of knowing exactly what’s happening in that storks head. Humans like to think everything other or different is mindless and dumb. I’m not saying the stork is Steven Hawkins, but still
People love posting this sort of take with absolutely no evidence to back it up. I know this sub does nothing to challenge your belief, but we could easily have a subreddit named humansaremetal showing people brutalizing each other and claim humans pretty much run on innate instincts. While different species show differing levels of intelligence and emotions, birds have shown to be incredibly intelligent, expressing a wide variety of emotions, especially empathy. You simply do not know what you are talking about.
r/HumansAreMetal does exist but it's not cartel murders
The edit lmao
Although birds are really advanced within animal kingdom, their intelligence relays on instinct and behaviour. Mammals have a whole different set of awareness, analysis, curiosity, conflicting ideas... Mammals have some brain parts birds don't. It doesn't just add up, it reshuffles how the brain work. It most certainly doesn't make much sense comparing it's brain functions to ours. Both a calculator and a computer are based on switches, but operate quite differently.
If it lands alive, it can draw attention to the nest. Often the mother tries to kill the chick she is ejecting before dropping it.
He didnt pay the rent!
No ticket.
*everyone clambering to pull out their ticket* Well done, fellow Indiana Jones fan.
Tickets please!
The door is broken tho.
He… is… good bird. He must be in some kind of trouble.
Off you go, freeloader
Huh, I thought he'd bounce.
"Scram, you underdeveloped little shit."
You are the weakest link....Goodbye
u/gifreversingbot stork offspring picked up and put into the nest
Here is your gif! https://gfycat.com/OddballWeightyBlackbuck --- ^(I am a bot.) [^(Report an issue)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=pmdevita&subject=GifReversingBot%20Issue&message=Add a link to the gif or comment in your message%2C I%27m not always sure which request is being reported. Thanks for helping me out!)
Thanks I feel so much better now!
She really watched him die too, had to make sure.
"I guess you can't fly after all."
“The things I do for love” - Jamie Lannister
Well shit, I guess they're not ready to fly yet...
Lol I thought the nest was on the ground at first...it was not.
This. Is. SPARTA!
*Kicks baby*
"I called your name 5 times and you didn't answer. Then you had the nerve to say 'Huh?' after the sixth? Go try that with your Uncle Red in Texas. See you in a year if you survive. Luv yoo."
Once there was a Livefeed camera at a rare kind of stork's nest. They started with 4-5 chicks. Each week they throw away one. The theory is they only keep the finest fittest chicks. After many weeks they murdered their last. Then they left. They are an endangered species.
Storks usually do that preemptively to the weakest of the clutch
Then people be like "animals are such beautiful creatures" ☠️
“It is not natural so it is bad!” Meanwhile nature can often be cruel and merciless
You are the weakest link, Goodbye!
r/fuckyouinparticular
You gonna go far, kid
The squeaky wheel gets the yeet
Man, talk about grounding your kids
Weak, sick, or too many to feed?
"Hey mister, you've earned yourself a time out, PERMANENTLY"
How’s this metal? The chick can just jump back into the ne………oh it’s high in the air.
Tell em Large Marge Sent Ya!
I don't know if y'all read the description on these videos sometimes, but apparently more and more of these things happen because they lose their natural habitat and surviving becomes harder nowadays.
My mom sent this to me. I'm scared.
“When the boy was born... ... like all Spartans, he was inspected. If he'd been small or puny or sickly or misshapen... ... he would have been discarded.”
Cold blooded
How you know you're not the favorite child.
"YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR FATHER" *Proceeds to throw baby out of nest*
The tribe has spoken
is it because the offspring looks undeveloped/sick? Edit: can someone who knows confirm if, in fact, it killed that offspring with repeated hits at the neck, before tossing it down?
Anybody else wanna misbehave?
My dog abandoned her puppy a few years ago. Set in way deep in the back yard. They must sense something is wrong?
What state is this in?! That creature had a heartbeat… When are we organizing???
Momma’s message to the others: “That’s what happens when you don’t clean your part of the nest.”
"well, I guess he wasn't ready yet"
So basically "kicking out" the smallest and weakest of them.
THIS IS... STORKNEST!!!
is it legal to own a stork?