Newborn Chick Snuggles With Its Surrogate Parent - a Feather Duster

This newborn Inca tern chick has been getting cozy while snuggling, not with its mother, but a household feather duster.

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The chick, temporarily nicknamed Patches, was born earlier this month at the Oregon Zoo.

Zookeepers decided to hand rear the newborn in an incubator box to keep it safe from the larger species in the Penguinarium exhibit.

Since then, Patches has taken to a feather duster it considers its surrogate parent.

Read: Small Wonder: Check Out This Tiny Little Blue Penguin, Who Hatched While on Display

"The feather duster provides some security and comfort for the chick, which has been eating well and is growing quickly,” zookeepers told InsideEdition.com.

Once the chick is old enough to fly, zookeepers hope to reunite Patches with the rest of its Inca tern colony, a species of seabirds known for its fluffy, white mustaches.

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