Over the hump

We celebrated yesterday: we had our first round checking on our Yellow-eyed penguin chicks and we had no deaths, none missing and no new cases of diptheria. That called for a blueberry muffin!! (yes, we spoil ourselves!) 
It had been a tough 10 days. We check each nest every other day and any chick that looks 'dodgy' is examined closer and since 8 Nov we had new diptheria cases every round; we lost 9 chicks (5 for no apparent reason, 4 were being treated but we think they were only at the initial stages of the disease); and 5 chicks have gone missing. One round there were 2 chicks in the nest, the next round there was only 1 chick - no trace of a body and we are suspecting predators. More traps have gone out and nothing has gone missing since. 
All hatching is done, we now have a total of 63 chicks alive of which only 14 are less than 10 days old. A total of 26 chicks had to be treated so far and 22 made it (the other four - see above) We are over the hump and happy. With every passing day the chicks are a day older and stand a slightly better chance of surviving diptheria should they get it. 
Have a blueberry muffin everyone - celebrate and rejoice!