How do cuckoos breed their offspring?

The cuckoo has a withdrawn temperament and moves alone. They don't build nests, they don't incubate, they don't give birth to youngsters, and interestingly they are still able to reproduce. It turns out that the female cuckoo always looks for a nest before laying eggs, such as yellow finch, lark, sparrow, etc., once the old bird leaves the nest, it lays eggs in someone else's nest, and then takes the nest owner away, and lets the nest owner incubate the eggs for him.

In the long-term survival and evolution, the cuckoo has developed a set of skills to make the real and the fake. The cuckoo's eggs are exactly the same in color, size, spots, and patterns as the eggs of the nest it occupies. Therefore, the little cuckoo's "mom and dad" are always deceived and raise them as their own children.

The baby cuckoo always emerges before the children of the step-in, and within 30 hours of birth, it pushes other eggs out of the nest. The poor "parents" did not know that their children were in misfortune, and still took good care of the "only child" in the nest. When the little cuckoo is plump, he will follow the "birth mother" who is active nearby.

The valley rain is the last solar term of spring, and the ancients said that at this time, "the dove is whisking its feathers", and the cuckoo begins to remind people to "hurry up the cuckoo". It's actually their courtship cry. Do you know what happens in the midst of such cries?

Some birds do not build their own nests, do not incubate eggs, do not give birth to chicks, but rely on other birds to complete the task of breeding offspring, cuckoos (commonly known as cuckoos) are typical representatives. The cuckoo will take the opportunity to take the eggs from the nests of other birds, such as reed warblers, thrushes, and shrikes, and lay an egg of its own in the nest for other birds to hatch on their behalf. After hatching, the unwitting mother will work tirelessly to feed the cuckoo chicks out of brooding instinct until the chicks grow larger than their own body.

Why do cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds' nests?

Birds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and are tended by other birds, which is called nest parasitism. How nest parasitism evolved is unknown, but cuckoos apparently benefited from nest parasitism. First of all, you don't have to build nests, hatch and brood yourself, which saves a lot of energy and can have the ability to lay more eggs.

Studies have shown that cuckoo females have to parasitize more than 10 eggs in different nests from March to July every year. Secondly, eggs that parasitize in other nests have a higher reproductive success rate. Cuckoos generally have only one egg of their own in a nest, and due to the short incubation period of the cuckoo's eggs, they tend to hatch first.

Instinctively, cuckoo chicks push the eggs and chicks of their nesting birds out of the nest, leaving the parent birds to raise themselves alone, so that they can get more food and have a higher survival rate. On the other hand, parasitism in multiple nests also avoids the risk of "putting all the eggs in one basket" as the saying goes, and at least one of the young birds will be able to leave the nest alive, ensuring the reproduction of the species. The hard-working mother bird** knows that it is no longer feeding her own children, but the chicks of the cuckoo.

1. Maintain hunger, provided that it does not affect development.

If a young bird asks for food once an hour, then it can be extended by 20 minutes on this basis. Generally, old birds use this method to induce young birds to stand on their own. When the bird's plumage is full, teach the bird to forage for food by itself with hunger, so don't feed it all before the bird will eat soft food, otherwise it will lose the motivation to survive.

Generally, the beak of the chick will be wide open, and the food we give should be sufficiently hydrated, and it is advisable to try to pinch it out of shape. Then use a small piece of suitable bamboo to pick up the food and feed it. As the bird grows older, its beak grows smaller and smaller, and the amount of pick-and-fed food decreases until the bird gradually hides or the food is not delivered to the mouth, and the bird closes its mouth and begins to peck at the food itself.

At this time, the water content of the bird food should be appropriately reduced, and the food can be kneaded into long strips. Try to be as thick and long as possible in the size of the food that can be fed in one bite, and replace the tools for feeding the chicks with bamboo sticks. The feeding stick should be properly moistened with water before and after feeding, and a little oxytetracycline can also be added to the water.

3. Tips for young birds to get out of the cage.

When the feathers are full, they will gradually eat soft food and will be reluctant to stay in the cage anymore. They tend to be impatient, and some may be trying to drill through the cracks in the cage, as if they are afraid of people. Don't worry, they just want to get out of the cage and play.

The cage is too small, and the artificially fed big ones will not be afraid of people, and the situation of anti-wild is that it belongs to the kind of artificial feeding to the chicks just after eating, and no longer close to it for a long time due to work or other reasons, just put water and food every day, which can easily lead to anti-wild. It is recommended that artificially fed young birds will eat on their own, and it is best to be close to the young birds for at least 1 month after that. Make it a little more memorable for you, in case of rebellion.

Then again, for birds that always want to come out of the cage to play, we can release the bird out of the cage inside the house and think of some way to let it know that the cage is the best, and that it is safe to eat and drink. You can let it go for a while, but don't feed it outside, and let it go back to its cage when it is hungry. Go back and forth a few times like this, and you will return to the cage on its own.

But if the bird has just hatched a small bird, you will not be able to feed it, just like the pigeon chicks are like this, they vomit out of their throat when they are fed, and the things that are given to the child contain something that is easy to digest, that is, there are digestive juices.

Female cuckoo of each species of animal transport group.

A fixed bird is chosen as its host, and the eggs laid are highly imitative of the host, differing only slightly from the original eggs in color and size. During the breeding period of the year, the cuckoo chooses 10 different nests and lays about 10 eggs.

After about two days, the cuckoo's chicks are hatched by its "adoptive parents". They will push all the other eggs out of the nest one by one, and if they sneak back to their baby reed warblers that have hatched, they will also be pushed out by them alive.

The cuckoo is similar in size to a pigeon, but it is elongated, with a dark gray upper body and a belly covered with transverse spots. The foot has four toes, two toes forward and two toes backward.

The cuckoo is also known as the cuckoo bird, which is an auspicious bird and a spring-promoting bird.

The big cuckoo calls like "cuckoo, mausoleum cuckoo", so it is also called cuckoo. Legend has it that it is the incarnation of Emperor Du Yu after his death, and Du Yu is the enlightened emperor in history, when he saw that the turtle had a meritorious role in controlling the water, and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, he took the initiative to give him the throne, and he died soon after. After his death, he turned into a cuckoo bird, crying day and night, urging spring to be blessed.

Some allusions to the cuckoo, the cuckoo's call was interpreted by the ancients as a mournful sound.

In spring and summer, the cuckoo bird will keep crying all night long, its desolate and sad cry, often arouse people's feelings, plus the cuckoo's oral epithelium and tongue are red, the ancients mistakenly thought that it "cries" to the mouth full of blood, thus leading to many legends and poems about "cuckoo crying blood" and "crying blood and resentment".