soon as the first egg is laid so that the chick which hatches first has a head start in development over its sibling. Incubation of each egg takes between 37 and 41 days, during which time there is no effort to keep the cavity clean and the male is responsible for providing food to the incubating female. The weight of the newly hatched chick is around and the first-hatched grows rapidly at the expense of the second, which will normally die of starvation before it is four days old by which time its sibling can weigh as much as . When the surviving chick is 21 to 33 days old the mother leaves the nest and starts to help in food provision, then after 80 to 90 days the chick leaves the nest. Abyssinian ground hornbills invest a lot in their offspring and the fledged juveniles will remain with their parents for up to three years. They have a slow breeding rate and an average of one chick is raised to adulthood every 9 years so the adults' investment in each young bird raised is exceptionally high. Feeding Abyssinian ground hornbills are opportunist feeders, following ungulate herds and forest fires so that they can prey on small animals disturbed by the larger animals or flames. An individual hornbill can walk up to in a day, pouncing on and eating animals they come across. They have also been recorded digging for arthropods in the soil and attacking bee hives for honeycomb; they very rarely consume any plant matter. The strong bill is used to capture and overcome the prey before it is eaten. Predators, parasites and diseases Abyssinian ground hornbills are preyed on by large carnivores, such as leopards. Human predation for food occurs in some countries, including northern Cameroon and Burkina Faso. The nests may be preyed upon by smaller terrestrial predators. The Abyssinian ground hornbill is a known host for the bird lice Bucorvellus docophorus, Bucerophagus productus and Bucerophagus africanus; it is also a host for the nematode Histiocephalus bucorvi and the tapeworms Chapmania unilateralis, Idiogenes bucorvi, Ophryocotyloides pinguis, and Paruterina daouensis. An individual held in captivity but which had been caught in the wild died from an infection of the bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila, a common pathogen in fish but not previously recorded in wild Abyssinian ground hornbills. In North America captive Abyssinian ground hornbills have also been known