Kiwis at the National Zoo
There are five species of kiwi, all of which are flightless and unique to New Zealand. The National Zoo is home to several North Island brown kiwis, the only kiwi that can be seen outside of New Zealand.
Keeper Kathy Brader provides updates about the Zoo's kiwis, including one that hatched on March 7.
New Name
April 24, 2008
The votes are in: kiwi chick will be named “Koa”. More than 45 percent of National Zoo website voters selected the name “Koa”, a Maori word meaning “happy and jubilant. “Titi” (meaning ray of light) came in second, and “Hiwa (meaning cheerful, alert) in third in a three-week-long, online vote. The Maori are the native people of New Zealand—the only place in the world where kiwis are found.
Busy and Active
April 20, 2008
Our newest little boy is a very busy and active child. Compared to Manaia, this one has a different personality, he is as they say “all boy”. When he is awake he is everywhere and into everything. When we bring out of his brooder box, depending on his mood, he can be very calm, but we are not deceived. At any moment, he springs up and starts running and jumping (he loves to jump). We have to keep a close eye on him as we never know what he will do. Then, all of sudden, he will go to sleep. He is a very funny little chap.
This past Friday, Paul Tomassoni, the Zoo's curator of birds, and I were invited to the New Zealand Embassy to join the Ambassador, Roy Ferguson, and his staff for morning tea. We were treated royally and presented with a check for the Kiwi Fund from the New Zealand Embassy’s Social Club. They had a fundraiser to raise money. Thanks to all of the staff at the Embassy for such a gracious gift. We also got to see the Ambassador’s office”right across from his desk is the lovely picture of Manaia that the zoo gave to him when he first met Manaia.
From left to right: Paul Tomassoni, Kathy Brader, Dawn Ferguson, and Ambassador Roy Ferguson.
On the eating front, it has been somewhat a challenge to get him to eat his regular food. Slowly he is eating more of the diet, with some mealworms to encourage him. I think we are finally going to see a steady increase in his weight gain. This chick goes his own way.
I thought it might be interesting for you all to see what the brooder actually looks like. He will be in this specially made brooder for another month and then moved to a large enclosure, which will also have a cam. It will be filled with shredded mulch and will also have a bowl of water, a bowl of food ,plus two small feeding tubes that he really enjoys digging in to get the food.
Brooder.
Though like all kiwis he will probe instinctively into the ground for insects, the food tubes are a more natural way to feed and this one loves them. It’s funny that Manaia never liked to eat out of them. You can also see the “burrow” side of the box that is where he goes to sleep. We hang a towel which gives more security to hide or sleep behind. I picked up that hint when I visited New Zealand a few years ago. This is where he is when he is not on the cam.
The other interesting and fun thing (well, at least for another keeper and I) was that we made kiwi footprints. I can’t tell you that he enjoyed it but it was funny watching two grown people painting a small kiwi’s feet and asking him to make footprints. This was not his idea of dignity for a kiwi! But we did manage to get some nice footprints; afterwards which we had lots of paint spots to clean up. We use non toxic children’s paint which comes off with water.
As for the kiwis here, Nessus and Maori seem to have decided that one egg is it for this season, we can’t really complain as it was fertile and we have a nice and healthy chick. But the parents are both doing well and having only one egg is perfectly normal, sometimes that’s all wild birds will lay. I have to remind myself not to be to greedy!
Manaia, who we built a nice outside enclosure last summer (and he lived in it for a short time last fall), had to come inside for the winter. This allowed me to plant more grasses and plants in the outdoor enclosure. Manaia will be returning to his outdoor enclosure in May. I am sure he will enjoy living outside.
He will continue his duties as our Kiwi Ambassador, doing the Meet A Kiwi at the Bird Resource Center on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11:00 a.m. He has now been maintaining a weight over 1.6 kilograms, a good adult male weight. I think our boy has grown up. He is still the nicest kiwi I have ever worked, he still expects to have a few hand fed tidbits every morning, what a darling!
Toru, the kiwi on public display at the Bird House has been experiencing some new lighting. We are trying out different lighting to try to find one that works best for the bird and the public to see him by. We have interns taking down the behavior for each of the different lights. This will take several months to do the actual observations with the lights and then compile the information.
Asa, also known as Pops, at the Zoo's Conservation and Research Center (CRC) in Front Royal, Virginia, has settled down to a nice comfy life. He is very calm and the staff at CRC uses him as an education bird.
Some of you may remember Baxter, our first Meet A Kiwi bird (for more than 16 years). He was sent to Columbus Zoo to pair up with a female, Gruen (a female hatched at Frankfurt Zoo). The pairing has gone well and Baxter incubated two eggs this season like a champ. He did a great job, but unfortunately the eggs were infertile. But I was so pleased that he knew exactly what his “job” was. He has also started to lose weight; this might have been a problem with producing fertile eggs. We are anxious to see what happens next year with the new slimmer Baxter.
New Pictures
April 7, 2008
A couple of recent pictures of the baby kiwi are below. He is gaining weight steadily, see growth chart.
Picky Eater
March 31, 2008
This chick has very different eating habits from Manaia, the chick that hatched two years ago. While Manaia began eating on day eight, this one didn't start until day 13.
Since he is proving more difficult, we have given him several options of feeding. He gets a bowl with the food and two small plastic feeding tubes. These two-inch-long tubes are stuffed with food and placed at various spots in the brooder. Kiwis use their natural probing behavior to dig into the soil looking for food. Oddly, Manaia never cared for the tubes.
The diet is the same as what we feed the adults, our version of meatloaf for birds. It consists of beef, mixed chopped vegetables, chopped fruit and special bird pellets. We mix it all up and then pull apart into smaller bite-size pieces for the birds.
It's a Boy!
March 20, 2008
DNA analysis has revealed that the kiwi chick is a boy. Notice how the father's and chick's bands are most similar. The DNA samples were collected from the shell immediately after the chick hatched.
Manaia, the chick that hatched in 2006, is also a boy.
First Meal
March 18, 2008
Food was offered to the chick on March 16, but it is proving to be one of the chicks that is going to take some coaxing to start eating—this is not rare among kiwis. Sometimes kiwi chicks take almost two weeks to begin to eat. We will add some extra meat and banana to the diet to make it more enticing.
Watching the web cam, you may notice two bowls: one for water and one for food. Yesterday, I added some bamboo leaves and a clump of grass to "spice up" the little one's night life.
This kiwi is one "wild child." It is very active. When I try to weigh it in the morning, the chick likes to bounce in the bowl, making it slightly difficult to get an accurate weight (but fun). Generally by 8 a.m. or so it wants to go to sleep, but is quite relaxed about being brought out for people to look at and admire. In fact, this one has no problem curling up on anyone’s hand and sleeping. Adorable!
Ambassador Visit
March 14, 2008
The New Zealand Ambassador Roy Ferguson and his wife, Dawn, came to visit our newest arrival. They spent an hour admiring our latest member of the Kiwi Nation. The Ambassador has been very supportive of our efforts to increase the kiwi population overseas, so that more people can see this unique bird.
We invited the embassy staff to come by and the response was overwhelming. We had visits from over 30 staff members and their families to visit our kiwi. They were all thrilled to see our chick. They mentioned our kiwi cam is a big hit in New Zealand, people normally do not have the opportunity to watch a kiwi chick growing up live. What a thrill for us that we have people watching from all over the world.
Kiwi Weights
March 13, 2008
In the chart below, you can see how the baby kiwi has been steadily losing weight. This is perfectly normal!
We want the kiwi chick to lose up to 20 percent of its total body weight. This ensures that the internal yolk sac has been absorbed enough not to cause a problem. A kiwi hatches out with the largest internal yolk sac of any bird, 64 percent of its body weight. This also makes them extremely vulnerable in the first few days of life, as they are basically an "egg without a shell."
They typically aren’t really able to stand until about day three or four. Then they start walking about. Their first meal consists of small stones, which are necessary to prepare their gizzard to aid food digestion, which typically begins about day eight to 12. In the Zoo, we will aim for the 20-percent weight loss and then offer food.
Kiwi Hatches
March 10, 2008
A baby kiwi hatched on Friday, March 7. This one is behaving very differently from Manaia, the kiwi that hatched two years ago. It is extremely busy and active, and was trying to walk and stand on day one. It actually jumped two inches on Sunday morning. This morning (Monday), it is walking although it is very wobbly.
Kiwi can take from 4 hours to 4 days to completely hatch out. The first indication is the internal pip, where the chick breaks into the internal aircell in the egg. This is the first air the chick breaths. When the oxygen is used up this will entice the chick to make the external pip, the first break of the shell.
The chick will then begin breathing outside air. During this process there are triggers that happen before the chick can come out, this includes pulling in the remaining yolk sac. The yolk sac is what is feeding the chick during incubation and helps feed the chick during the first days out of the egg.
There are also blood vessels that need to sealed off, all of this happens during the hatching period. Kiwi are unusual in that they hatch out with largest internal yolk sac of any bird species, 64% of their initial body weight is yolk. This allows the chicks to wait 8-12 days before they start feeding.
This kiwi chick made his internal pip sometime on Sunday, March 2nd. He then made his internal pip on Monday, March 3rd.
Hatching is an exhausting process, so chicks do rest while they going through this. This little guy took the full 4 days to hatch out. During the 4 days while we watched, you could see his bill coming out of the external pip site and we could whistle to him and he would make soft “squeaky” sounds back.
Once he was completely ready to come out, it only took about 8- 10 minutes to bust out. Kiwi do not have a egg tooth that other chicks have to break out of the egg, they use their strong legs to kick out.
Kiwi Egg
February 22, 2008
A fertile kiwi egg was laid on December 27, 2007. It has been placed in an incubator and is developing nicely. The earliest it could hatch is February 29 but it could be as late as mid-March.
