Keepers at Queenstown's Kiwi Birdlife Park are nursing their breeding female Tawahi back to health after an emergency caesarean.

Photo: Supplied

Tawahi had to be rushed to the vet a week ago after suffering seizures in her burrow.

Surgery was crucial because the kiwi was unable to lay the egg herself.

While Tawahi has survived the ordeal, the egg did not.

Paul Kavanagh, the park's manager, stayed with her late into the night after surgery.

"Generally you try encourage her to lay the egg, obviously surgery is one of the last options but we felt she wasn't going to make it through the night even, she was really really close to passing away," he said.

Mr Kavanagh is hopeful Tawahi can breed successfully in the future.

"Very often egg binding is just a once off ...the egg obviously wasn't viable unfortunately.

"It was a really big egg, it was 395 grams, which is quite big considering it hadn't calcified yet. So we are hoping she will continue to breed."