Masking Tape Saves a Baby Kiwi’s Life

Duct tape fixes everything. If you don’t know that, then ask this guy. If you still don’t believe it, your education is lacking. Fix that here – with lots of duct tape, too.

However,  Claire Travers, Rainbow Springs Kiwi Husbandry Manager might just have found a crack in duct tape’s world domination by saving the life of a baby kiwi with masking tape.

Gasp! Masking tape. Not duct tape!

Seeing how it all turned out, though, I guess it’s okay to admit this one time that duct tape wasn’t used. It’s not like they said they didn’t try duct tape, did they?

So, what happened?

A Department of Conservation (NZ) worker found a cracked kiwi egg. With the damage being rather bad, the egg was brought to Travers.

She said that the egg’s state meant that the chances of the baby kiwi coming out alive were very low: “The shell was broken through to the egg’s internal membrane splitting it so the membrane had collapsed on top of the chick, which is very dangerous…The shell is a vital structure as it maintains the correct moisture of the membrane, absorbing oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide – without it the egg is in danger of losing too much moisture.”

So what was needed was a balance of keeping the chick inside safe and sound all the while allowing CO2 to get out.

Enter some masking tape…I guess it is at this point where we realize why duct tape might not have worked…

Travers herself admits that she wasn’t sure if her fix would work, but sure enough, 11 days later, a tiny chick came out!

You can watch the video here.

Now I’ll leave you with this. Just because I can.