The chicks are growing up

It's been a difficult week for the yellow-eyed penguins at our colonies. Last week we discovered that many chicks had the dreaded Diphtheria and we swung into action to treat them with five daily doses of antibiotics. We only lost one chick that was treated and then died anyway. But a number of others died without symptoms and we don't know what was wrong with them. We can't cure death but we are extra vigilant with the remaining chicks. So the stats are looking a little grim: we started with 71 chicks hatched and have 58 remaining. 62% of chicks got sick and were treated that made for 43 chicks that required the treatment. Most are well again now and treatment was stopped.
There was a silver lining in that many chicks were relatively large which made extracting them from their protective parents less hard and dangerous for the chicks. Here is a picture of a couple of chicks that did not require treatment and they are behaving well hiding behind the parent at the back of the nest.