Chicks

One parent guards the chicks in the nest until they get so large that both parents have to go to sea to get enough food for them.

Following hatching the chicks are constantly attended at the nest for 40 to 50 days. 

Chicks have their eyes closed until the third or fourth day but can shift position, yawn and feed from day one.

Chicks are fed at the nest by regurgitation of stomach contents of the returning bird.

For the first week the chicks are incubated like eggs but as they grow so fast after two weeks only the head and shoulder fit beneath the adult.  The chick can now sit upright.

By day 20 the sparse primary down is replaced by thicker secondary down.

Chicks spend their time sleeping, preening and making short excursions from the nest.

After this ‘guard phase’ looking after two chicks requires the presence of both parents.  Sadly if one parent is lost a chick has to be removed from the nest to enable the other chick to survive.

Parents feed chicks until they are up to six kilogrammes in weight. Then they are ready to go off to sea and teach themselves how to forage.  Unfortunately many die at sea in their first year falling prey to barracuda, sea lions and sharks. 

From JT Darby and PJ Seddon.  The Breeding Biology of the Yellow-eyed Penguin Megadyptes Antipodes.

You can see that rearing a yellow-eyed penguin chick is vastly different to Antarctic species where chicks are formed into crèches while their parents are away fishing.  This is their way to combat predators.