During this time all the adults and juveniles help with their care, taking turns babysitting while the others go out to work. Returning to the lodge, family members bring back fresh food for the kits. The father, again, is a reliable and hard-working provider of food and fresh bedding for the newcomers. In as little as 10 days, the kits may begin to eat, and dad brings in a steady stream of grasses and branches for them to dine on. Hope Ryden, who spent four years with a family of beavers on Lily Pond, speculates that beavers care for their kits for such a long time because the kits need to learn some highly specialized survival skills.
Home is where they learn the vital skill of grooming.
Mutual grooming is an important daily ritual among beavers that reinforces their social ties while it keeps their fur clean and waterproof. For aquatic mammals who spend most of their lives in water, clean, waterproof fur is a matter of life or death. Much of the beavers' renowned construction and engineering skills are learned as well. Even diving under water long enough to swim below the lodge to the entrance has to be learned by observing older family members. Dorothy Richards actually had to teach one hapless kit who'd been separated from his family how to dive before he was able to return to his home lodge and reunite with his family.