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Chattanooga, Tenn. (June 18, 2009) – Tennessee Aquarium
penguin keeper Amy Graves had a bit of a surprise today. Right after delivering
the first penguin program of the day, she saw something exciting. “I went over
to give Paulie a fish and when he stood up ever so slightly, I saw a piece of
chipped shell in the nest,” Graves said. “When
he stood up more, there was a quarter-sized hole in the shell and a tiny beak
sticking out.”
The “pipping” process begins when the chick
breaks through an air cell inside the shell. “The chick is still fully within
the egg, but that’s when it gets its first breath of air,” explains Dave
Collins, the Aquarium’s curator of forests. “That starts its lungs working and
the blood circulating and it becomes an air-breathing bird for the first time in
its life.”
Then the chick starts to break through the
shell along the edge of the air cell. This is often a barely noticeable crack.
Once the beak breaks through the shell, the chick gets a really good breath of
outside air. “Then the chick turns in the egg and begins “unzipping” the egg.
This involves pecking along the edge of the air cell and popping the end of the
egg off,” Collins said
Graves has yet to get a good
look at the newborn macaroni penguin, but she has heard it. “I heard a very
soft, yet strong, ‘peep, peep, peep’. This was good news to my ears because when
you hear the chick vocalizing, then you know that the chick is alive,”
Graves said. “You don’t always see the baby
penguin in the beginning, so hearing it vocalize is important.”
The baby penguin will likely stay sheltered
from view underneath the parents for up to three days. “It is going to require
full brooding which means the parents are going to have to stay on the baby and
not let any cold air get onto it,” Collins said.
Penguin keepers plan to let Paulie and
Chaos raise the chick on their own as long as they continue to be diligent
parents. “If they are feeding the baby, it stays well-hydrated and no other
birds start picking on it, we’ll leave it on exhibit with the parents,”
Graves said.
Aquarium staffers have prepared a backup
plan in case those conditions are not met. They are prepared to mix and feed the
baby “penguin milkshakes,” a nutritionally balanced baby penguin formula. They
also have a brooder on standby. “This is a comfortable shelter that will keep
the baby warm as if it were under the parents,” Graves said.
Now that the chick has hatched, there are
still a number of challenges ahead including the baby’s overall health and
chick’s curiosity down the road. “It is still too early to tell how strong this
chick is. And later on we wouldn’t want that youngster wandering out of the nest
too soon,” said Collins. “So we will remain vigilant and hope the parents remain
as dutiful as they have been so far.”
Penguin
keepers at the Tennessee Aquarium are still watching two pairs of gentoo
penguins with eggs. ‘Bug’ and ‘Big T’ have two eggs. ‘Biscuit’ and ‘Blue’ also
have an egg in their nest. It is still unknown whether any of these eggs are
viable or not.
Watch the penguins on the Tennessee Aquarium’s live webcam.
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