Meet "Tequila"

Two of our penguins, Shawn and Agave, are first time parents!

Here she comes...



And here she is...




The story of Shawn and Agave:
They came from 2 different zoos (I want to say Ohio and Colorado) and arrived in Philly on the same day about 2 years ago. Before moving into their home in "Bird Valley", they had to go through their quarantine of 30 days at the hospital, and this is where they first met. At the time I believe Shawn was 2yrs and Agave was 1, and both were about a year away from being sexually mature. Once they moved outside, they went their separate ways for a bit, living out their teenage-hood. Last year they came back together. I'd like to say it was love at first sight, but the truth is most of the other penguins were already paired up. Opposites must attract however. As those of you who have met Shawn know, he doesn't realize he is a penguin. He is the only one who will waddle/run right up to you and actually wants human attention. Agave from the start was quite a handful. She is a very aloof penguin- doesn't approach to closely (even for food), and generally trys to stay away, but when we do have to catch her up for vet procedures boy is she a pistol! She will bite and whack you with her flippers like no body's business. Last winter they laid a pair of eggs (always 2 at a time- aka per clutch) but they didn't hatch.

This year they laid two more. When the big blizzard came through, we moved the eggs inside to an incubator for fear that the nest would flood and drown the eggs once the show started to melt. Shawn and Agave were given two "false eggs" that insured they would continue to sit on the nest and take back the real eggs before hatching. Once the threat was gone, the false eggs were removed and the real ones returned. Before putting them back in the nest we "candled" them (use a machine that shines a light into the egg so that you can hopefully see signs of a developing chick such as veins) and determined that only one of them looked viable. Last Saturday we saw a "pip" in the shell. Pipping is when the chick uses its "egg-tooth" to break through the shell. Sunday I was on the Bird Valley area and went to check the nest. The hole was still only about the size of the little one's beak. By Monday the hole had only grown to about the size of and M&M and I started to get a little worried that it was taking longer than usual (24-48 hrs). I checked once again in the afternoon and it seemed like the chick was less vocal and active in the shell, like it was tiring out. It also looked like the membrane inside the shell was drying out and adhering to the chick. I called the vet down to take a look and she ended up carefully removing the rest of the shell and membrane herself. Chicks also have a spot on their abdomen where the "yolk sac" gets reabsorbed (or sucked back in to their body) for some final nutrients. The sac had been completely reabsorbed (sometimes it doesn't) but there was still a little bloody area on what I call the penguin's belly button. The vet applied some antibiotic ointment and then I quickly put "Tequila" back in the nest. It was really cold out and the parents needed to get back on top of her as soon as possible. The second picture above was taken today (Tuesday), the morning after she was assisted in hatching. She weighed in at a scrawny 81.1 grams! For some perspective, I just weighed a medium sized onion and it was 253g. I decided to name her Tequila because Tequila is made from Agave! Actually, her full name is "Tequila on the Rocks" in honor of it being so cold out :)