Imprinting

Guineas are strange creatures. Some hobby farmers raise them for fun because they have a unique talent: they are good “watchdogs” for the farm. Whenever a varmint (i.e. fox, racoons, coyotes, hawks, and many others) comes around the farm day or night, the guineas make a huge amount of racket. Their squawks are like they are dying.

Many small farms have purchased or swapped for some guineas without knowing much about them. Most think like this—if I can raise chickens, I can raise guineas. Wrong! They do not do well in pens as they like to forage the pasture. They are great in the garden as, unlike chickens, they do not scratch up the plants, but they consume all insects.

Free range chickens know their turf, but not so with guineas. They roam away from your farm and onto the neighbors’ properties. Guineas are good at hatching their young (called keets), but they are poor mothers. They are entertaining as they wobble when they walk. Chickens can flutter their wings and stir up some air, but they generally cannot fly. Guineas don’t just fly, they soar. They can easily fly over a house. They roost high up in trees where they watch for any night invaders.

Since they are poor mothers, I never had any baby guineas, so I purchased 11 keets from a neighboring farm. The babies are susceptible to cool breeze and dampness, so I had to put them in a brood box with a high intensity lamp to keep them warm and dry. I still lost two of the two-day old keets in the first few days.

After the keets had been in the brood box for 4-5 days, a mother duck showed up with one duckling. King snakes feast on chicken, guinea, and duck eggs, and they particularly like duck eggs since they are so large. I decided to relieve the mother duck of her responsibility of raising just one duckling by placing the duckling in the brood box with the baby guineas.

At first the keets picked on the duckling, but after a few days, the duckling thought he was a keet, so they got along just fine.

The duckling grew faster than the keets, and it was much cuter than keets—according to all the grandkids. After several weeks I released them in the barnyard, and that duckling thought he was a guinea. The baby guineas had not developed their wing feathers sufficiently enough to fly, so the duckling followed the keets everywhere they went in the pasture.

A couple weeks later, as I was watching the keets and the duckling eating grass seed from the tops of tall grass in the pasture, the duckling saw some ducks, and it was like he realized for the first time that they were like him. The duckling wandered from the keets and took off after the ducks. When the ducks came to the water, the duckling followed the ducks into the pond. There was no turning back for the duckling. He had found his family.

There is a term for what happens when some baby creatures are born. Imprinting is the learning of a behavioral pattern that occurs soon after birth (or hatching in the case of our duckling) in certain animals, in which a long-lasting response to another creature (usually a parent) is rapidly acquired. True imprinting is found mostly in birds that can walk soon after birth, but it is also seen in some mammals such as zebras, racoons, guinea pigs and hyenas.

Imprinting is that critical period early in an animal’s life when it forms attachments and develops a concept of its own identity. When I placed the newborn duckling in the brood box with the baby guineas, I had never heard of imprinting. I had no idea that the duckling would develop such a strong bond with the guineas. Imprinting in animals usually takes place during the first few weeks of life, and it works in such a way that the young form a life-long attachment to their mother.

In humans, this process is often called bonding, and it usually refers to the relationship between the newborn and its parents. There are few things in the world more wonderful than this bonding.

When we first decide to follow Jesus, the principles of imprinting work in our lives. However, I have known people who have professed Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and then within a few weeks or months there is no evidence of a changed life.

After my duckling left his adopted guinea family, there was never any relationship with the guineas. With followers of Jesus, imprinting is different. When people declare they are followers of Jesus, and then afterwards they do not show evidence of a relationship with the Lord, they still have a relationship with the Heavenly Father. They are still part of the family of God.

All of us probably have friends like this, and we need to continue to bring them to the Lord in prayer. We must never give up on them as we encourage them to walk with the Lord.

So many new believers are not discipled because there is no one to disciple them. It is our responsibility because Jesus commanded us to make disciples—to equip people to know Christ and to make Him known.

Afterthought:

Understanding this imprinting process helps me better interpret my childhood perceptions of the legendary Tarzan being raised by the apes.