New baby penguin stars on YouTube

by | Apr 9, 2010

Woodland Park Zoo’s second penguin chick hatched on Easter Sunday, after its older sibling hatched last week. Check out the zoo’s YouTube video of the oldest chick getting a check-up.

Parents Dora and PJ, both three years old, are taking care of the chicks in the penguin nesting burrows, and it will be early summer before the babies venture outside for visitors to take a look.

In zoos and in the wild, both penguin parents take turns incubating the eggs and caring for their young. Penguin keepers are weighing the chicks each day for the first week after hatching to ensure acceptable weight gains while allowing the parents to raise their chicks and gain experience as parents. The newcomers now weigh between 2.5 and 5 oz. The oldest chick doubled its weight by 6 days of age. To date, both chicks are experiencing good weight gains and are not showing signs of sibling rivalry. The zoo remains cautiously optimistic that both chicks will thrive under the care of their parents.
The chicks mark the first breeding and nesting season for the colony of 18 penguins since the exhibit opened last May. Over the past few weeks, three pairs of Humboldt penguins have been sitting on eggs in nesting burrows specially constructed for the birds in their new exhibit.

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