Orphaned Duckling struggled to walk, so rescuers made him TINY Shoes

“He was struggling to walk,” Newhouse told The Dodo. “His little toes were curled in, and he was kind of walking on his knuckles. It looked really uncomfortable.”

That’s when Newhouse’s daughter spoke up: “Mom, is something wrong with that one?”

The duckling had just lost his mom in a tragically common accident: She was trying to lead her babies across the road when a driver intentionally hit her — right in front of another driver, who couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He pulled over, gently gathered the ducklings and rushed them to Newhouse Wildlife Rescue in Massachusetts.

It turned out that one duckling’s feet hadn’t formed properly (likely due to a vitamin deficiency in the egg), and without intervention, they would have stayed curled. So Newhouse got creative. Using the lid of a food storage container and some medical tape, she fashioned him a pair of the tiniest orthopedic shoes.

At first, the duckling wasn’t sure about his new footwear. But soon, he was waddling faster — and clearly happier.

The team started calling him Happy Feet, and the name stuck.

“We changed the shoes every day to keep them clean and dry,” Newhouse explained. “After three days, we took him to the vet and took them off, and his feet were perfectly flat. He was walking normally.”

Happy Feet wasn’t the only duckling to arrive at Newhouse Wildlife Rescue this spring. Just days earlier, another good Samaritan witnessed another mother duck get hit by a car. Traffic stopped as her confused ducklings scrambled across the Massachusetts Turnpike.

“All she had in her car was a TJ Maxx bag,” Newhouse said. “She scooped the ducklings into it and called me, frantic.”

In total, Newhouse has taken in more than 70 orphaned ducklings this season, her first as a wildlife rehabber federally permitted to care for waterfowl. When ducklings hatch in spring and early summer, Mom has to get them to a water source. And that often means crossing busy roads with helpless, panicked babies.

“There are only a handful of us in the state who can take in ducklings,” Newhouse said. “And when a mom gets hit, you’re talking about seven to ten babies, all needing care.”

Inside the rescue, ducklings are grouped by size, with younger ones snuggled under warm lights and older ones splashing in shallow swim tubs. As they grow, they graduate to outdoor ponds, learning to forage and flap until they’re ready for life in the wild. So far this year, Newhouse has released 20 ducks back into nature.

Rescuing ducklings isn’t just about the animals, she said. It’s also about helping the people who witnessed tragedy.

“The man who brought in Happy Feet was just the sweetest,” Newhouse said. “It helps the people who witness the suffering to know that the animal’s going to get that second chance.”

And, in Happy Feet’s case, it’s also a strange kind of fate.

“He wouldn’t have survived in the wild,” Newhouse said. “If his mom hadn’t been hit, he never would’ve gotten the help he needed. It’s a weird twist, but it gave him a chance.”