Follow the Leader by Hendro Soetrisno

Do you have your ducks in a row? This farmer does. Every morning he starts the day by gathering his ducks to feed them before going to the paddy field. The ducks love to follow him. Young ducklings imprint on whoever they spend time with within the first few days of their life. It is often their mother or siblings. In this case, it is the farmer. Imprinting is a form of learning in which animals gain a sense of species identification. In other words, if ducks follow humans, they have imprinted on humans. They will identify themselves as humans, not ducks. Reversing the imprinting process is almost impossible. An extreme example is if a duckling is separated from the mother right after birth...View all