A baby penguin which had to be separated from its family after a
greedy sibling continually ate all its food has found companionship –
with this stuffed toy.

Mates: Pingu the penguin chick at the Living Coasts zoo in Torquay who has found solace with a stuffed toy

The penguin – called Pingu – began to
lose weight and appeared weak after its bigger relative regularly
helped himself to all the fish on offer.

Concerned keepers
were forced to remove Pingu from the enclosure, but at just
three-weeks-old the penguin was in desperate need of company.

Staff
bought a £3.99 toy penguin from the zoo shop which acts as a surrogate
sibling to the chuffed chick – who cuddles up to its new friend all day.

Comforting: Staff at the zoo decided to hand
rear the baby African penguin after noticing its older sibling kept
eating all it's food

There is hope for Pingu!

Pingu
– an African penguin whose sex has yet to be determined – was born with
its sibling at the Living Coasts attraction in Torquay, Devon.

Senior
head keeper Tony Durkin said: 'At first it seemed everything was going
well but then we noticed one sibling was growing more quickly than the
other.

'You do get size differences in the wild but it only becomes a problem if the difference gets too great.

'We
prefer not to interfere, as it's better for parent birds to rear their
young naturally. But as the size difference increased, so did the
problem.

'The smaller chick was getting some food, just not enough. When it fell in the pool we decided to give it a helping hand.

'The
cuddly penguin toy is something for the chick to cosy up to and be
comforted by – a surrogate family for the time being.'  Pingu is living
in a snug den made out of foam matting and towels with a shelter to
imitate a normal burrow.

For the first
two or three days the chick was fed warm, liquidised fish from a
syringe before being gradually weaned onto chunks of sprat.

Pingu now takes small whole sprats and is being fed six times a day by a team of five foster mothers.

African
penguins chicks are about the same size as those of a domestic chicken
. They grow quickly and at eight weeks are close to full size.

Soon
after they lose their downy feathers and grow their juvenile plumage,
which they keep until they are about one-and-a-half years old.

Keeper
Lois Rowell added: 'The chick is quiet but quite inquisitive. It enjoys
a shallow warm bath and being preened by us when its feathers need a
clean up.'  The youngster will return to the colony when it is strong
enough to compete with the others for food.

As well as a stuffed penguin Pingu also cuddles up to a toy puffin.