A broody hen, as you know if you’ve ever had one, can be quite a problem, as she’ll insist on nesting even though there are no babies to hatch. There are ways you can break your bird of this habit, but instead of disciplining his chicken’s deep desire to mother, the creator of the YouTube channel “A Chick Called Albert” gave her a higher purpose in life.

When he noticed that his hen didn’t want to get up off the nest, he offered her an egg to adopt. Only there wasn’t a chick inside this egg—there was a duckling. What ensues is one of the most heart-warming stories of a mother and child we’ve encountered in the farming world.

The hen immediately accepts the role of egg caretaker, and promptly pushes the egg under her body, where she keeps it warm until hatching. When the baby duck emerges, you can tell she knows it’s not her own, but she does all she can to learn the little creature’s habits and take care of it appropriately. She learns what it likes to eat and that it likes to swim, and she watches over it as if it were her own.

It’s not a completely uncommon thing to allow a broody chicken to raise a duck, and now you can see why. This hen doesn’t let differences get in the way of showing compassion to her charge. Instead, she becomes the best mother she knows how to be.