4-legged duck puts best foot forward in Britain

Stumpy, a four-legged duckling at Warrawee Duck Farm, Copythorne, Hampshire, England, Saturday Feb. 17, 2007. A rare mutation has left the bird with two legs behind the usual two. (AP Photo/PA, Barry Batchelor)

? This round, the game might sound a little more like: “Du-duck, du-duck, goose.”

A rare mutation has left Stumpy, above, an 8-day-old duckling, with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on.

Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles southwest of London, showed the duckling to reporters Saturday.

“It was absolutely bizarre. I was thinking, ‘He’s got too many legs,’ and I kept counting, ‘one, two, three, four,'” Janaway said.

Stumpy would probably not survive in the wild, but Janaway, who runs the Warrawee Duck Farm in New Forest, says he is doing well.

“He’s eating and surviving so far, and he is running about with those extra legs acting like stabilizers,” Janaway said.