Sunday 3rd February 2019

One of the lucky ones - looking fantastic

​Hello friends and family
Last Sunday we did the first of the 90-day checks and found 10 underweight chicks. We brought 8 of them in and left the other 2 because we took their sibling so they will get all of the parent’s food. We will be checking every second day and doing a re-weigh of all chicks in the colonies on Sunday. This weight loss is sudden and unexpected. 

The season just keeps giving

​To cope with the extras, Robbie came on Monday and constructed pens inside the aviary. This means we don’t have to disturb the settled 11 chicks. By Tuesday we had picked up another 6 chicks plus 2 starving mums who had given up. The aviary had 9 chicks by the end of the day! It did not stop there – on Thursday we had our 3rd starving mum and 2 more chicks. The total was 33.
Robbie came back on Friday to construct a new enclosure by the water tank to house the adults.
It took us both most of the day, but we completed the building on the day. He came back with the Wainak team on Saturday and sorted out the floor with smooth rocks to help keep the penguins clean.

The brand new Hugo wing. It now has 6 adult penguins in it.

​Our penguin team spent yesterday in the field, weighing all of the chicks left in the colonies. We now have 36 of them in care, leaving 17 with their parents. Some are in because their mums have collapsed with exhaustion and 2 have a dead dad. All of them are under the 5 Kg cut off for 90 days.

A photo of penguin blood in the microscope, taken on the cell phone looking down the eyepiece

We will be busy!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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