Kiwi feathers tell the story

Boy

News Release

Kiwi feathers tell the story

Rotorua, 8 January 2015: Feathers tell an interesting story when it comes to kiwi, revealing the sex of the bird.

Several delicately plucked feathers from each young chick hatched at Rainbow Springs' Kiwi Encounter hatchery are sent away to Massey University for DNA testing. The precious DNA material is found at the tip of the feather shaft where it enters the bird's skin and this is what reveals its gender.

Kiwi Encounter Husbandry Manager Claire Travers says, "We do try to give the kiwi chicks gender neutral names when they hatch because we can't determine their sex without DNA testing. It's only as the birds reach maturity you have a better chance of telling the gender apart, without DNA feather sexing. The female birds are larger, with a longer bill and a very different call to their counterpart. We do try to make educated guesses with the chicks but we don't always get it right..

As chicks Stewart, Stephen and Kevin recently proved.

"Funnily enough a group of chicks that were named after volunteer workers - Stewart, Stephen and Kevin - all came back as being female! And another chick named Boy turned out to be a female. We did have a little giggle," Claire says.

"Knowing the sex of the kiwi before it's released back to the wild is an important management and monitoring tool. It is important to know the sex of a bird when its released because we don't want an imbalance of male and female birds in an area. Also male kiwi are tracked when they have reached maturity and have paired as they are the ones who sit on the eggs and incubate them so determining their location is vital.

"This way DOC workers and volunteers can then lift the eggs from the nest and they can be hatched and raised at Rainbow Springs' Kiwi Encounter to a healthy weight in safety before they are released back to the wild, therefore hugely increasing their chance of survival away from stoats and rats.

If you would like to sponsor a kiwi, visit www.rainbowsprings.co.nz for more details.

Rainbow Springs is an icon of NZ tourism, and has been open since 1932. Spread over 22 acres of Rotorua Parkland, Rainbow Springs is a conservation and breeding haven for endangered species like the Kiwi and tuatara. Features of the award winning tourist attraction include New Zealand’s only “open to view” Kiwi hatchery, and a range of wildlife including trout, tuatara and native birds.

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