The eggs of North Island brown kiwi pairs at Mt Bruce are laid in pairs in underground nests in the forest.
Each kiwi has a tracking collar, so staff know where the nests are, and when the eggs are laid.
Incubation is about 80 days, and forest rangers wait until about 65
days to snatch the egg from the nest.
Young kiwi are especially vulnerable, so Mt Bruce staff will look after the chick from here on until it has hatched and grown large enough to have some ability to defend itself.
Staff take the egg to an incubator, where it is turned once a day.
In the final two or four days before hatching, the chick "pips" or pierces the albumen around the inside of the egg, and begins breathing air.
Unlike most birds, the kiwi uses its legs to hatch out, an exhausting process that can take up to four days.
From there, the newly hatched bird is put into a "brooder", a small insulated chamber, to recuperate from the exhaustive process of hatching. This can take two to four days.
Chicks are closely watched indoors in the first three weeks, to get back up to their birth weight, to absorb the yoke sack, and to get used to the artificial diet.
At three weeks, the young chicks are ready to be released outside into a fenced enclosure, where they continue to an adult weight.
At 5 or 6 months they are fitted with a leg transmitter and released into the Mt Bruce protected area.
Here, the young kiwis are caught and checked monthly until they reach 12 months and are fitted with a transmitter.
Pukaha Mt Bruce hatches its own eggs and some from a programme at Rimutaka programme, and they are expecting 10 in the next month.
Captive breeding manager Rosemary Vander Lee said that in time, with greater kiwi numbers some chicks may be allowed to hatch in the nest.
