National Kiwi Hatchery Rotorua

I kept insisting long enough and convinced Maddie that a trip to the Kiwi Hatchery in Rotorua was a grand idea. I mean, baby kiwis! What‘s not to love? Unfortunately, we weren‘t allowed to take pictures of any live animals. Only the stuffed ones. Enjoy.
Our tour guide in training was a bit thrown off when he asked us what we knew about kiwis and I said, “They‘re pretty tasty.“ (Cheap joke, I know. :D) At least I followed it up by mentioning they‘re nocturnal. We learned about kiwi eggs being taken from the wilderness (because there they only have a 5% chance of survival) and brought to the hatchery (95% chance of survival). We saw eggs in the incubator and two newly hatched kiwis (Adorable! They even fit in my car! What? Nothing…). Also, there was a baby kiwi feeding in progress which we got to watch. Kiwis usually eat live insects but the hatchery doesn‘t have enough access to provide the kiwis with proper food, so they try to wiggle a special mixture of food purée in front of the little birdies. In our case, that didn‘t work. They just opened its beak and stuffed it in there. Put a cookie in front of me and it basically flies into my mouth. Kinda like what happens if you get too close to a black hole. The cookie gets spaghettified. But I digress.
While I enjoyed looking at stuff in the gift store, I unfortunately didn‘t have access to my spare 1000 dollars (must have left them in my other pants), so I only got a tasty steak and cheese pie for brunch. That alone was expensive enough. ^^Read more