Baseball Clay Helps Flamingos at Disney's Animal Kingdom Have Their 'Most Productive Breeding Season'

The baseball clay provided to the Animal Kingdom by the ESPN WideWorld of Sports helped the Florida park's lesser flamingos build bigger and better nests

Baseball has found a flock of feathered fans just in time for the 2023 season.

The lesser flamingos of Disney's Animal Kingdom have discovered their love for America's pastime — or at least the clay they use in the sport. According to the Disney Parks Blog, two groups of flamingos call Disney's Animal Kingdom home: the Florida park's greater flamingos at Kilimanjaro Safaris and the lesser flamingos near the Tree of Life on Discovery Island.

While each flock makes nests seasonally to welcome their baby birds, up until recently, only the greater flamingos were having regular success with their nests. From 2002 to 2022, the lesser flamingo only produced one chick, while the greater flamingos welcomed many more.

In search of a solution, the animal care team examined the materials surrounding each flamingo group's habitat. Flamingos build their nests on the ground, often making a perch out of mud and dirt for their eggs to protect them from predators and water damage.

"What if we enhance the mud in the nesting area with baseball clay, because where else do tall mounds of dirt exist but on baseball fields?" the animal care team asked, according to the Disney Parks Blog.

While the idea might seem out of the flamingos' league, the animal care team explored the idea with the Sportscape team at ESPN WideWorld of Sports. The Sportscape team masters the clay formulas needed to support softball, Little League, and Major League Baseball fields.

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"Baseball clay can differ depending on where you play and the weather conditions in your area, but it's basically a mixture of sand and clay," Tommy, a field manager with the Sportscape team, shared. "Our mixture at ESPN Wide World of Sports is roughly 78 percent sand, a little silt, and nine percent clay. Here in Florida, we look for our clay to perk — or dry — as fast as possible given the amount of rain and sun we receive and the demand of all of the events we host."

Working together, the Sportscape and animal care teams introduced the fast-drying baseball clay used at the ESPN Wide World of Sports to the lesser flamingos' habitat at the Animal Kingdom park for the 2022 breeding season. The results were almost immediate.

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"After we introduced the new clay during last year's breeding season, the flamingos began building bigger and better nests than we had ever seen," Jamie, an animal manager with Disney's Animals, Science, and Environment, said.

On these nests, the flamingoes laid seven eggs in total, and so far, one has hatched into a healthy chick named Sandy.

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"This is the first lesser flamingo chick we've had growing up on Discovery Island and the most productive breeding season to date!" Jamie added. "Having the entire flock engaged in breeding behaviors and multiple pairs working on nests and laying eggs helps us rate the success of the baseball clay."

To learn more about the imaginative ways Disney cares for the residents the Animal Kingdon, watch National Geographic's Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom, airing Friday nights at 10/9c and streaming on Disney+.

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