A Californian mum certainly deserves special recognition after keeping a duck egg alive for more than a month.
In a Reddit post that's gone viral, Betsy Ross shared how she'd saved a cracked egg - by putting it inside her bra.
"Saved a cracked egg! Carried it in my bra for 35 days," Betsy explains. "It was born prematurely he was still attached to the yolk and it was not absorbed so I got a wet paper towel and applied antibiotic on its cord and tummy twice a day. Surprised he didn't die."
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The act of heroism began when Californian mum Betsy took her children to the local park to play pickleball and they found that someone had destroyed the duck nests there.
Betsy told us: "Someone smashed up all the duck nests and my kids were very upset. They found one that was cracked but not leaking and begged me to save it."
When Betsy called her local wildlife centre they said they couldn't take the egg, so Betsy set about to form an unusual plan.
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"I asked if I got it to hatch if they would take it. They said yes. So I put it in my lane Bryant sports bra."
Betsy, who works as a sign language interpreter, applied antibiotic to the egg's cracked shell and researched ways on how to hatch it successfully. She found that the egg needed to be kept warm and rotated, but could not afford an incubator, the standard way of helping eggs hatch when they've lost their mums.
"I carried it in my bra for about 33-35 days," Betsy adds, "even slept with it."
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And the whole family got involved too. "My husband held it when I showered."
Soon Betsy struck up a bond with the egg and, once she'd started to see it grow by using a torch to look inside the shell, she became "invested".
Once the time came for the egg to hatch, Betsy set up a makeshift box for the duckling - with a bowl of water, lamp and lots of tape - and even managed to hatch it while dealing with a family emergency.
"My son had to go to the hospital with meningitis the same day the duck started hatching," she explains. "So I had my 10 year old on duck duty."
Once hatched, Betsy held the duckling up to drink his first sips of water and he began following her around.
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"He would cry if I left or he heard my voice. It drove the hubby nuts.
"I made him a carrier and took him places with me."
But Betsy had to make the tough decision to let the duckling, who she named Thawne, go.
"I had to find him a rescue because it wasn't fair to keep him in a small apartment with no other ducks so I found him a nice place. It was so hard but it was best for him."
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Betsy recently shared an update with her fans who were keen to know how the duckling was getting on, calling Thawne a "silly duck".
Aww, you guys!
Topics: Pets, Animals, Pets, Animals, Pets, Animals