The only Malay peacock-pheasant chicks hatched in a European zoo this year are thriving at Chester Zoo, one raised by a foster mother of a related species.

Two Malay peacock-pheasant chicks are thriving at Chester Zoo after keepers stepped in to save both of them. One was hatched and raised by a foster mother from a related species. The other was kept alive with a hot-water bottle made from a rubber glove.

They are the only chicks of their species known to have hatched in a European zoo this year, Chester Zoo said on 12 November.

How rare the bird is

The zoo gave these figures:

  • 15 Malay peacock-pheasants are recorded in the whole European zoo population, according to EAZA, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria.
  • As few as 2,500 may remain in the wild.
  • The species is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.

The birds live in forest that is being cleared for farming plantations, the zoo said. As the forest shrinks, the surviving birds are easier to hunt and trap.

The foster mother

The Malay peacock-pheasant mother did not sit on her first egg. Keepers took it into the zoo’s incubation centre. They then gave it to a broody bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant, a closely related species, to hatch and raise.

Leanne Lowton, the zoo’s lead birds keeper, said: “We didn’t want this chick to grow up not knowing how to be a pheasant.” Chicks reared closely by people can struggle to learn natural behaviour, the zoo explained. Of the foster bird, she said: “She is a very experienced mum, and she incubated the egg perfectly.”

A brown bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant standing on bark chippings with a small speckled chick beside her
The bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant foster mother with the chick she raised. Photo: Chester Zoo

That chick is now a healthy young male. He moves into his own habitat at the zoo this week.

The rubber-glove hot-water bottle

Taking the first egg away gave the Malay mother the chance to lay again. This time she sat on the egg herself. But she left the nest too early after it hatched, and keepers found the chick dangerously cold.

Ms Lowton made a small hot-water bottle from a rubber glove. She gave the chick glucose syrup every hour through a day and a night.

“It was quite an intense 24 hours,” she said. “We popped the hatchling back with mum the next morning and she immediately accepted her chick. I’ve never been so relieved in my life.”

The mother has raised the chick well since, the zoo said.

What it means for you

Visitors can see Malay peacock-pheasants in the zoo’s Dragons in Danger building. Adult males have speckled brown feathers with iridescent blue spots. Ms Lowton described their call as a “Disney villain cackle”.

The species is rarely kept in zoos, the zoo said. That makes the two young birds important to a conservation breeding programme building a back-up population.