Kiwi Chick Update
Waiti Tk.Km.10
Meaning of name: One of the 7 sisters of ‘Matariki’
Egg & Chick Background
Conservancy egg is from: Taranaki
Date egg arrived at Kiwi Encounter: 15.05.07
Estimated age of egg on arrival: 30 days old
Hatch Date: 2nd July 2007
What’s happened so far…
Waiti is pronounced “why e tee” and it is one of the stars that make up the star cluster Matariki or Pleiades. Matariki means “small eyes”. Waiti means “sweet nectar”. This chick was named Waiti as it hatched during the Maori New Year.
On arrival the egg was very dirty, so we carefully washed it. The egg also had some surface cracking to the shell, so we sealed the cracks with clear nail varnish. The egg weighed 465g on arrival.
We incubated the egg artificially for 48 days before it hatched. Waiti did need a little assistance from us to hatch – the chick was having trouble breaking through the membrane on the inside of the egg. It weighed 348.5g on hatch; this is about average for kiwi chicks.
Waiti was moved to a brooder at two days old. At its five day health check Waiti looked great, stood well and walked well too! It is a very wriggly little chick and very vocal too! Waiti needed at little assistance getting onto the artificial diet – it had worked out how to move the food from the tip of its bill into its mouth (which some chicks struggle to) but couldn’t work out how to pick it up in the first place!
Do you have a boy or a girl?......
Feathers will be taken for DNA sexing when it has its first moult, and new feathers come through.