0:00
they are jack the penguins there they are hopefully everyone guessed my dreadful penguin
0:07
waddle before the break uh and you were right these are the rock hopper penguins they are being
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weighed some need maybe a little bit more a little bit more of a push to get onto the scales i
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certainly would uh but they're being fed plenty of fish having a nice breakfast sarah forsyth
0:22
creator of mammals joins us again this morning um so penguins being weighed what are we kind of
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looking for what are the what are the key things that you're looking out for today well changes in
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the weight really is what we want to see as you'll see some of the penguins are looking a bit scruffier
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than others that's because at the moment they're going through their catastrophic molt which is
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quite a challenging time for the penguins and they do put on a lot of weight before this because their
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feathers are no longer waterproof so it's a good way of checking are they heavy enough at the moment
0:48
are they going to get through the molt okay and do we need to give them any support during this time and they're all seem to be quite happy to jump on the scales when there's a fish about
0:56
Just kind of tell us about the rock copper penguin, you know, as a penguin, how they may be different to other breeds
1:02
Well, penguins generally can be quite sociable animals. They live in large colonies
1:06
So the keepers work with them on a regular basis. They go in with them to feed them
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It's a good way of managing their health and monitoring their condition. So actually, they're quite friendly
1:15
They're quite sociable. But to be honest, if there's not fish around, they're not that interested
1:19
But they got a really distinctive you know look about them as well with these kind of what would you call them eyebrows what are they i not sure what you call them actually but yeah they are very different so we also have the blackfoot penguins here as well which are an african species which don have those at all
1:35
so rockhoppers are one of only two species of penguin that have those so what are some of the
1:39
kind of the average weights that we're getting then this morning from the penguins what are we seeing well an average weight is around three to three and a half kilos but you'll see amongst them
1:47
a smaller one without his eyebrows uh that's aussie our penguin chick who's just three months
1:52
old so he's probably going to be weighing in at the lowest at the moment and and is it true that
1:58
they that they get very kind of protective and there's a whole kind of i guess a structure a
2:03
whole kind of protection structure when when they kind of lay and and then that kind of
2:07
that pregnancies in in progress yeah well we we've had to step in and intervene with aussie
2:12
because this is an endangered species really important that we have successful uh babies born
2:17
in the zoo. So we actually hand-reared Ozzy for the first three months
2:22
and then introduced him about a month ago to the rest of the colony. But as you can see, he's fitted in perfectly fine
2:27
and is now part of the group. But yeah, quite often we will help out where's needed
2:32
But they do come together as a colony. They protect each other's eggs and try and keep more predators away
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So, yeah. All right, Sarah, thank you once again. We'll be joining her a little bit later on this morning
2:43
As you can see, you've probably heard as well These penguins very happy to be getting their fish this morning
2:49
The weighing going very well so far here at Whipsnate
