Penguin eggs start to hatch at Edinburgh Zoo

02 May 2011 1

 

Penguins: The birds prepared their nests with stones earlier in the season. Pic: © Deadline

New arrivals are due at Edinburgh Zoo as the penguin eggs start to hatch.
Staff at the popular visitors attraction said on Monday that the first egg has started “chipping”. This means that the chick has started to break out of the shell.
The penguin colony has laid over 100 eggs this year and it is expected that the eggs will start to hatch over the next few days. The Gentoo penguins have laid 96 and the Rockhoppers have laid seven.
Viewers can watch the action as it happens on the zoo’s Penguin Cam.
Although there have been lots of eggs laid, many of these will not hatch because they are broken or because they are not viable. Some of the chicks that do hatch will not make it to adulthood.
Last year, the Gentoo penguins laid 129 eggs. Of these, just 56 hatched and only 40 chicks survived to the end of the year.
The Rockhopper penguins laid nine eggs but none hatched.
The zoo is famous for their large penguin colony. It was the first zoo to have penguins when three arrived in January 1914 and the first to breed when a King Penguin egg hatched in 1919.

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