Will all mother avian be able to incubate and raise eggs from another different kind of avian?
I know some birds are able to incubate and raise eggs from another birds from different species and I was wondering if all avian have the same capacity to do so provided if they’re somehow adaptive with each others.
I was wondering if : (all foreign eggs have been fertilized by their previous parents)
- A hen could raise baby ducklings from eggs (if you mix some of her eggs with duck eggs while she’s incubating her eggs).
- The same like above but we change duck eggs with quail eggs (will she still behave the same?)
- A pair of captivated eagle would be able to raise baby chicks.
- The same like above but you dispose all eagle eggs while they’re out (will they still behave the same to these foreign eggs?)
- We put parakeet eggs in a few nests of flock/group type of birds such as pigeon. Will they accept these foreigners (if they can be raised such way) in to their flock? will they (parakeet) exhibit the same social structure?
- The same like above but we use another species of pigeon eggs instead of parakeet eggs. Let say, Indian pigeon eggs in common pigeon flock.
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6 Answers
It depends entirely on the requirements of the egg, the parental behaviour selected for in the adult exhibiting the care, and the capacity of the adult to provide sufficient and appropriate resources for the young.
Scrub turkeys in Australia place their eggs in giant mounds of earth, which hatch, excavate their way out, and immediate forage on their own with zero input from the adult. ie. there is no further parental care.
The young of most (I would imagine all) other bird species would not survive such circumstances.
Basically some avian parents have such unique behaviours, morphologies, etc.. that there won’t be other species that can be raised by them.
If they are willing and they recognize the egg as one of their own. But their care cannot deviate from their own patterns so if the other egg can survive in those conditions it could be raised.
Hoatzins are a likely further example. They feed their young fermented regurgitated food. As they have such a unique gut fermentation system it’s likely the young of any other bird species wouldn’t survive the diet provided by the parent…assuming the eggs were even accepted.
There are some known examples (chickens and ducks), but then again the egg needs to be on a par with the “parents” own eggs. A chicken hen won’t do well with quail eggs nor an ostrich egg;certain raptors would probably eat the strange chicks.
Well, blackbirds raise cowbirds all the time, so yes, this is possible.
Provided that the young are able to eat the food that the foster-parent can provide, yes. An eagle could hatch a goose’s egg but the goose chicks could not survive on the diet that an eagle would offer.
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