Monday 11 July 2011

Watching two Speckled Teal Ducklings emerge!

What a wonderful sight – the emergence of two tiny ducklings this morning in our incubation house. They’re Speckled Teals (Anas flavirostris), a South American species (sometimes referred to as Yellow-billed Teals) and although not listed as being ‘threatened’ by the IUCN they’re very precious to us!

We rescued two eggs from a pair of our captive Speckled Teals after discovering them cold and not being incubated - they’ve been kept at a constant temperature (36 degree C) for about 28 days in one of our incubators.

The image below shows the duckling emerging from its egg.

Emerging from egg in incubator July 11

Below – Just out of the egg!

Just emerged in incubator DSC_0309

Image below – the tiny duckling, aged only a few minutes old, has just been moved from the incubator to a brooder where it’ll spend the next couple of days being closely monitored by the Animal Care Team. It’s sibling was hatching only minutes later (and can be seen faintly in the background) – so hopefully the two will be good company for each other in these early stages. Once they’re a couple of weeks old they’ll be able to join some of our other ducklings in a protected outdoor enclosure.

Newly hatched in brooder DSC_0323



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