Bird keepers at Edinburgh Zoo were hoping their hard work would pay off and their rare pair of Darwin’s rheas would produce a chick this year. Little did they expect or dream that they would be faced with the delightful dilemma of having NINE of the supersized and increasingly threatened South American birds!
A massive coup for animal conservation charity the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, who own and manage Edinburgh Zoo, Darwin’s rhea chicks have only been born and successfully raised in a very small number of zoos in the UK and certainly never thrived in such large numbers. The animal experts believe their amazing success has been down to, amongst other things, a special outdoor exercise routine and a varied diet of fresh weeds from across the Zoo’s grounds.
Nick Dowling, Senior Bird Keeper at Edinburgh Zoo, said:
“Our Darwin’s rhea pair, Evita and Ramon, are in their first breeding season together here at Edinburgh Zoo and we were hopeful we might successfully help them to hatch and rear their first chick this year. It was beyond our wildest expectations that we would end up with so many – an incredible total of nine.
“The birds are balls of energy and run around non-stop and they are also eating machines, but we are not complaining as it is an amazing and unexpected problem to have. We are delighted and extremely proud that Edinburgh Zoo has succeeded in hatching and rearing such a difficult and increasingly threatened species.”
Rhea chicks incubate for 35 days and out of the nine chicks, the oldest pair are two months old and weigh around five kilos, three chicks are around a month old and the final four are just over a week old.
Darwin’s rhea first arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in 2007, but this current pair, Evita and Ramon, both hatched in French zoos in 2011, and were first paired here at Edinburgh in mid-2013.
Visitors to the Zoo can see the two month old chicks in front of the monkey enclosure, next to giant pandas and the pudus. Eventually all nine chicks will live where their parents currently are, near to the member’s gate and face painting hut.
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