The blog includes photos (chick pics), videos (chick flicks), and keeper interviews (chick lit) and updated continually for three weeks. Visitors can meet the chicks and their keepers, watch them grow, and see the painstaking care that goes into raising them.
“We wanted to show people what goes into hand rearing the penguin chicks from day one and share the growth process,” said Jeff Sailer, Director of City Zoos. “These new additions to the penguin colony are a success in animal husbandry and reflect the bird expertise we have at the Central Park Zoo.”
With a $10 donation to the care of the penguin chicks a “chick magnet” will be sent to the recipient of your choice just in time for the holidays. The magnet features a frame with a picture of one of “the real chicks,” and a space where you can put a picture of your very own chick magnet. Proceeds support the care of theses beautiful penguins and other wildlife residents of WCS’s Central Park Zoo.
First time parents, the father, Wallace & mom Kim are taking good care of their new chick, who hatched on June 16, 2011. Just like it happens in the wild, both Rockhopper Penguin parents help take care of their young there at the Zoo. You can see them in the video below.
Photo Credit: David Jenike, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
You can see the Rockhopper Penguin family in the Subantarctic Display in the Wings of the World Exhibit.
It's that time of year again! At the very end of May, the pegnuin colony at the San Francisco Zoo hatched several Magellanic penguin chicks. One of the keepers managed to get rare footage of one of them just hours after it came into the world. That video is below.
Young penguins first exchange their silvery down for an immature set of soft gray feathers without the distinctive striping of the adult. They molt into their “tuxedo” in their second year. After training at the Zoo's Fish School, where they will learn to swim and fish during the first few months of their lives, the chicks will march to their new residence at Penguin Island. There they will join over fifty other penguins who live at the colony. This much anticipated March of the Penguins event occurs annually and is quite a sight!
Photo Credit: Amy Frankel, San Francisco Zoological Society
The video below of a just hatched penguin chick is rare. Normally parents will not let anyone or anything as close as this. You can only get an idea of how tiny the chick near the end, when the parent sticks it's beak and head into the frame!
April is a great month in San Antonio, Texas. Spring is in the air, the temperatures aren’t boiling yet, and the promise of a fun-filled summer lies ahead. But what Aviculture team members at SeaWorld San Antonio’s Penguin Encounter are most excited about is the abundance of the biggest babies around – King Penguin chicks! While most Penguin species lay two eggs, King Penguins only lay one. They carefully balance their egg on the top of their feet, and completely cover it with a protective fold of feathered skin known as a “brood pouch.” SeaWorld San Antonio’s king Penguins start laying their single egg in late December, and as they take approximately 55 days to hatch, the first chicks typically begin hatching in early March. The newly hatched chicks remain in the brood pouch as long as they fit, but quickly outgrow it and instead stand huddled against their parents.
Photo credits: SeaWorld San Antonio
SeaWorld San Antonio’s king chicks will likely be large enough to be easily seen by mid to late April. They’ll spend the entire summer decked out in a full coat of brown, fluffy chick down, even when they are as large as their parents!
Moody Gardens announced the birth of a new Chinstrap Penguin last week, making it the first Chinstrap chick ever born in the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid. “We are one of only four institutions in the country to successfully hatch a Chinstrap Penguin,” said Diane Olsen, assistant curator at Moody Gardens. Olsen said the unnamed chick will only be on display until it learns to walk. Because Chinstrap Penguins normally nest in beach areas with shallow water near the shore, it is important to keep the chick away from the deep, cold water of the exhibit. While away from public view, the chick will be weaned from parents Hatcher and Carter, taught to swim and then reintroduced to its tuxedo-clad peers.
Check out those feet! Photo credits: Moody Gardens
Moody Gardens is one of five zoos and aquariums in the U.S. to feature the sub-Antarctic chinstrap penguins in captivity. Olsen said the opportunity to see this chick is as rare and unique as the bird itself. “Our goal is to let people see these penguins to become more aware of and concerned for them so that when the issues of conservation and habitat destruction arise, visitors will be encouraged to take a stand for our animals and their environments,” she said.
Apparently it's baby penguin season on ZooBorns with the latest adorable installment coming direct from the Cincinnati Zoo. This Little Penguin chick is just two-weeks old and is currently being cared for behind the scenes, inside the Zoo's Wings of Wonder exhibit.The chick weighs approximately 250 grams (or a quarter-pound), but is expected to weigh just over two pounds as an adult. Mom, “Oreo” (7-years-old) and dad, “Boomer” (8-years-old), were not properly incubating the egg, so staff at the Cincinnati Zoo made the decision to pull the egg and incubate it themselves. Little Penguins are the smallest species of penguin but that doesn't mean this chick doesn't like to eat. Zoo aviculture staff have to feed the demanding little bird six times a day, every three hours. At first it was fed a delicious fish milkshake but has since graduated to slices of fish (sashimi if you will).
ZooBorns just received these outstanding images of young Rockhopper Penguins, which are being raised by experts at SeaWorld Orlando. The young Rockhoppers eventually lose their downy feathers and grow their familiar colorful crests. You can find more amazing photos on SeaWorld's blog.
SeaWorld San Antonio’s penguin population has increased with the recent hatching of Gentoo, Rock Hopper and Chinstrap Penguin chicks. This has been the most successful year for Chinstrap Penguins in SeaWorld San Antonio’s history, with nine chicks produced. A soft grey in color, Chinstrap Penguin chicks average about 70 grams when hatched, but easily grow to over 500 grams in just ten days, thanks to the regurgitated fish fed to them by both parents. They will get their distinctive black “chinstrap,” along with their other adult feathers, when they fledge at about three months of age.
Bird keepers at the UK's Dudley Zoological Gardens celebrated the royal engagement by naming two rare baby penguins after William and Kate. Humboldt Penguins live on South America's rocky Pacific coastswhere they burrow homes within mountains of accumulated guano (but we're confident the Zoo meant no disrespect!). Vulnerable to extinction in the wild due to over-fishing and ocean acidification, Humboldt Penguins are protected by the US Endangered Species Act. Dudley Zoo's colony of 60 Humboldt Penguins is the UK's largest.
By royal appointment: Dudley Zoological Gardens Keeper Sam Grove with the rare Humboldt chicks born this week staff at the Midlands tourist attraction have named William and Kate.
A short and sweet video showing the process of an African Penguin chick emerging from it's shell, called pipping, from egg to baby bird! The New England Aquarium has had a penguin baby boom this summer so if you live in the Boston area, definitely make the trip.
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