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From our scientist, Hiltrun Ratz, PhD
scientist@penguins.org.nz |
The inventively named "Stavert's Comfy Penguin Retreat" box saw two chick hatch and their parents have done a good job raising them but at the weigh-in at 70 days one of the chicks was not quite up to weight. So to relieve the obviously struggling parents, it was whisked off to rehab for a bit of TLC and R&R. It has now learned to eat from the hand and will be dining on salmon twice a day until it is time to be released at 3.5 months old. It's sibling in the meantime remains in the colony and should now thrive without the competition of a sibling.
Vivek - who is really a girl, sorry mate - has done a wonderful job with her mate raising their one chick. It was up to weight at the 70 days weigh-in and was looking fab. Vivek had not bred before, she is only 2 years old, and her mate had not bred in a couple of years. Nonetheless they have achieved this good-looking chick! Well done to both of them!
This is a chick with an interesting history for its short life: It was adopted by a male-male pair to relieve its biological parents and has featured as a star here on FB a few times. It also has a sponsor - someone who cares. Its foster-dads have done a marvelous job but the chick was not quite fat enough at the weigh-in at 70 days. So here he is - we think it's a 'he' - on his first day in rehab. He has probably been a bit hungry for a while so twice a day salmon should see him right in no time. Bringing him in early means he is likely to be released at normal fledging age of 3.5 months and his dads will get a chance to fatten up and moult together - they might even think that the chick is really precocious and has left early.....regardless, even his 2-year young dad should make it through the moult now unassisted.
While many of the older yellow-eyed penguin chicks in the colonies have lost most of their down, the pair of chicks that were raised in this sponsored box are still quite young. They have left their box and are sitting in the forest - and not always together. In fact one of them has a new best friend and sitting with that chick rather than with its sibling. They go from being cute-as-a-button soft toy looking to - well to this really: a little moth eaten maybe? Soon all the fluff will be gone and they look magnificent!
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