A California woman is being praised for going above and beyond to ensure that a cracked duck egg she found in a park hatched, by incubating it in her bra for over a month.
Betsy Ross, an independent contractor from Visalia, California, was walking with her family in a public park when her kids noticed that someone had maliciously smashed up all the duck nests that were there. Miraculously, one of the duck eggs had survived the massacre with only a small crack. It wasn’t leaking, so the kids begged her to save it and try to help it hatch. She had never hatched and egg before, and she didn’t think she could save it, but the children were already upset because of the nests, so she said yes. That was the start of a remarkable journey that saw the young mother of three carrying a duck egg with her everywhere she went for 35 days.
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
Betsy didn’t have an incubator, and after contacting the local wildlife rescue organization, she learned that they didn’t take eggs, so she had to find a way to hatch it herself. The best spot she could think of to keep it warm was in her bra, closed to her chest, and after researching how to hatch a duck egg online, she realized that her choice had been perfect, as the eggs basically require warmth and humidity. She also read that she had to rotate it a few times a day.
“My boobs sweat in heat (gross I know),” Ross said in an interview with Bored Panda. “I carried it in my bra for 35 days and slept with it there as well. I’m a plus size girl so it just kinda fit right between my breasts.”
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
Wherever Betsy went, so did the duck egg, and she even slept with it in her bra too. The only time they parted was when she showered. That’s when she would hand it to her husband for a few minutes, figuring that if mother ducks left the nest every once in a while to get food, her egg would survive too.
As time went by and the embryo inside the egg grew, Betsy started researching on the internet what to do when a duckling is hatching, and learned that it needed much more humidity, and that she had to stop rotating it. Her bra wouldn’t do anymore, so she started a hatching box herself.
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
“At 35 days, I started hearing faint peeps which the internet said was called pipping and its beak was pushing out of the lining,” the woman said. But things weren’t as simple as you would think.
A day after putting the duck egg in the hatching box, she noticed that something was wrong and called a vet. It turned out that the duckling inside was being”shrink-wrapped in the membrane” and she had to peel away the shell and make sure the bird’s beak was where it could breathe. The little duck eventually got out of the egg, but it was still attached to the yolk on the bottom, which, she was told, was because he had hatched a bit early. She later learned on Reddit that it was either because the incubation temperature was too low, or because the temperature wasn’t stable.
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
“I got a wet paper towel and wrapped it around the shell with the yolk and put Neosporin on it so it wouldn’t get infected. Maybe not the best idea but I was scared,” Betsy said.
Even after the duckling absorbed the yolk, it was too weak to stand, or even move, for a couple of days, but its human mom didn’t give up on it, keeping an eye on it and giving it water from time to time. He (it turned out to be a male) eventually built up the strength to walk and Betsy built him a special carrier and took him everywhere with her.
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
When the duckling was old enough, Betsy called one of her connections at the animal rescue and found him a home at a nearby farm where a young girl couldn’t wait to meet him.
“He is doing well and has a new human girl who loves him,” Betsy Ross said.
Photo: Betsy Ross/Bored Panda
This story sounds remarkably similar to that of Daisy the Duck, whose Malaysian master reportedly hatched her from a restaurant egg that was meant to end up as a snack known as “balut”.
