I don't think that it's all that unlikely that pigs and chickens would or could have made it. That's a very small push indeed.
On that subject, how would the sweet potato have adapted to New Zealand climate?
On the subject of Moa, sadly no. Moa apparently spent most of their time with their head down, grazing. Ostriches are only looker uppers because they have to be perpetually on the lookout for predators. Also, Moa were very long lived, very slow growing, and slow reproducing animals, so this makes them poor candidates for domestication. Finally, Moa were neither migratory nor inclined to travel through large territories, they occupied basically local territories, so their young didn't have to work particularly hard to keep up with the adults, and they never developed the extra muscle and endurance that in an adult would make for a good draft animal.
Rideable sloths would have been extinct by the time of Polynesian expansion, so that's also a sad no. There would have been a near miss, perhaps a mere thousand years on Gomphotheres.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Years.
On that subject, how would the sweet potato have adapted to New Zealand climate?
On the subject of Moa, sadly no. Moa apparently spent most of their time with their head down, grazing. Ostriches are only looker uppers because they have to be perpetually on the lookout for predators. Also, Moa were very long lived, very slow growing, and slow reproducing animals, so this makes them poor candidates for domestication. Finally, Moa were neither migratory nor inclined to travel through large territories, they occupied basically local territories, so their young didn't have to work particularly hard to keep up with the adults, and they never developed the extra muscle and endurance that in an adult would make for a good draft animal.
Rideable sloths would have been extinct by the time of Polynesian expansion, so that's also a sad no. There would have been a near miss, perhaps a mere thousand years on Gomphotheres.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Years.