Kiwi hatching season closes with finding of late egg

The current kiwi hatching season has been longer than usual. Photo / Kiwi Encounter

The kiwi hatching season has closed with the discovery of a late egg, out of which will soon emerge a fluffy chick.

The egg was discovered by a ranger charging a transmitter on a male brown kiwi named Max in the Tongariro Forest last week. Worried that the egg might be abandoned by its father, she took the egg to Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs in Rotorua for incubation and hatching.

When brown kiwi are in the wild, the egg is incubated by the father, while the mother goes off to feed.

"Sometimes when a kiwi is scared it won't return to incubate the egg, so the best option in this instance was to bring the egg to Kiwi Encounter to hatch," said Kiwi Encounter husbandry manager Claire Travers.

It will take around five weeks for the egg to hatch, which is estimated to be at 40 days of development.

The current kiwi hatching season has been longer than usual, beginning on September 5, with the latest arrival possibly stretching the close of the season out to June.

Kiwi Encounter oversaw the hatching of 107 eggs during the season, with two still in incubation and another one due to hatch any day.

"As always its been a very rewarding season, the Kiwi Encounter team never tires from nurturing these precious birds and helping ensure that they have a strong start in life so they can survive in the wild," said Ms Travers.

Highlights of the season for the Kiwi Encounter team have included a rare ginger kiwi named Kindara and a kiwi named Whisker who survived being run over by a digger.