The Keeper's have their hands full with Humboldt Penguin Chicks at Seaview Wildlife, Isle Of Wight

As you can see we currently have our hands full with ducklings and penguin chicks this Easter!

The reason for this is some of the parents from our eight breeding pairs of Humboldt Penguins don't always make brilliant parents, and can be a bit heavy footed and clumsy at times.... therefore the Animal Keepers here at the Park do sometimes have to intervene and take over the role of rearing these fragile little chicks.
At the moment we are hand rearing 4/7 chicks! This means we have to feed the greedy penguin chicks liquidised sprats and vitamins 4 x a day every four hours, recording their progress and weight each time.

Today we had the added task of weighing those penguin chicks still on the nest with their parents....unfortunately it can be stressful but this is completely necessary to ensure that all the chicks are being fed properly and gaining sufficient weight.


The photos here show a penguin chick hatching as we speak!

On this occasion it was necessary to 'pull' the chick from its parents, who currently have one other chick, due to the fact it was struggling to hatch!

The penguin chick will be incubated until it hatches and regains strength, then all being well will be able to join the other youngsters for a well earned snuggle before the next feed in the Incubation House where visitors can view the chicks being fed at 12.15pm and 4 pm daily....


....it's a hard life!