Pip The Rescued Baby Ostrich Explores Her New World On Live Feed (VIDEO)

WATCH LIVE: Rescued Baby Ostrich Emerges From Egg, Discovers New World

Pip, the ostrich chick, emerged from her egg in Southern California on Sunday morning, with more than 40,000 viewers watching online.

The chick's adopted dad, Mr. Dash, originally posted the live feed of the egg so he could watch it from his mobile phone. But when the egg began to crack, the number of hits skyrocketed to half a million.

Dash bought the egg on July 6 at an ostrich farm in Buellton, a city to the west of Santa Barbara, where it was being sold as food.

"I wanted to rescue it since it may be fertile and I could not imagine making an omelet out of it," Dash wrote on the live feed page.

He created a makeshift incubator out of a cardboard box and a heat lamp surrounded by seven thermometers. After more than a month of devotedly turning the egg over so the embryo wouldn't get stuck to the shell's side, his efforts finally paid off when Pip made her first crack in the egg at 10:30 am Saturday morning.

But her neck was too poorly positioned for her to break out of the egg on her own, and it took 21 hours and help from Dash for her to make it out.

California decided to classify the ostrich as poultry in 1995 so there's no special permit required for owning one. When viewers asked Dash what he plans on doing with a pet ostrich, he wrote, "We have chickens, so are used to birds, I am hoping that I will be able to tell a story of an amazingly friendly ostrich who made a wonderful pet."

He's also found a number of more ostrich-friendly environments, including the local zoo and a ranch in New Mexico, where Pip can live should she become loud or destructive.

It's still unclear whether Pip is actually even a "she" -- Dash refers to her hopefully as a girl, since female ostriches are typically smaller and less aggressive but her true gender remains a mystery.

"She appreciates being held and talked to. Its hard for me to leave her," Dash wrote. "The sound is turned off for family privacy now, but the Live Baby ostrich cam will continue indefinitely."

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