Maternal Behavior

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Maternal Behavior
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Maternal Behavior

• Maternal behavior is influenced by
• Hereditary
• Experiential
• Hormonal

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Maternal Behavior

• Primiparous females are most likely to neglect or
  attack their offspring.
• Referring to females having undergone only one
  cycle of pregnancy and parturition.
• Bond forming with young is dependant upon litter
  size.

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Maternal Behavior

• Internal Factors that Elicit Maternal Behavior
• Hormonal and Neural Controls
• Maternal behavior is characterized by sudden
  onset.
• Aggression - sudden in onset but does not
  persist
• Other adult behavior seem to have been rehearsed
  by the developing animal in play.

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Maternal Behavior

• Play includes elements of
• aggression
• sexual behavior
• chasing
• fleeing
• but not of maternal behavior

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Maternal Behavior

• Maternal behavior is an innate behavior.
• Genetically programmed response to a certain set
  of stimuli.
• The behaving animal must be physiologically
  prepared to respond to the appropriate stimuli.

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Maternal Behavior

• The stimulation of maternal behavior appears to
  be under both hormonal and neural control.
• Estrogen rises and progesterone falls at
  parturition in sheep
• Estrogen appears to facilitate
• Progesterone to inhibit
• maternal behavior in this species.

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Maternal Behavior

• Learning
• The evidence for the role of learning in maternal
  behavior is found mostly in higher primates.
• Example Monkeys
• artificially reared monkeys are poor mothers
• Most maternal behavior problems are in
  primiparous animals.

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Maternal Behavior

• Concaveation
• The presence of neonates can induce maternal
  behavior in virgin females and even in males.
• Mainly studied in rats and mice.
• It is used to treat lamb and foal rejection.

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Maternal Behavior

• External Factors that Elicit Maternal Behavior
• Olfactory smell of conspecific animal wet with
  amniotic fluid.
• Auditory newborns calls that may elicit MB
• Visual physical appearance of newborn
• Miscellaneous
• old mare will baby sit

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Maternal Behavior

• Crossfostering
• transferring offspring from one dam to another
• primarily transferring scent
• litter bears are more willing to accept fosters

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Maternal Behavior

• Sow
• change piglets at time of parturition or later
• sow cant do anything if in farrowing crate
• smear piglet with sow feces
• Sheep
• critical period for acceptance is shortly after
  birth
• ewes spend 20-30 min licking lamb
• amniotic fluid smell very important to ewe

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Maternal Behavior

• Cattle
• amniotic fluid, drape dead calfs skin over
  foster
• Horses
• nurse mares in industry
• dead foals skin over foster
• Cats
• will accept fosters

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Maternal Behavior

• Nursing
• newborn will seek udder/teat
• nuzzle along looking for teat
• nursing activity increases as milk is letdown
• general stages to milk letdown
• massage udder
• quiet period while waiting
• true suckling for a varied period of time

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Maternal Behavior

• Recognition
• Swine use vocal and olfaction
• Sheep use visual, olfaction, audition
• recognition cues reinforced at every nursing
• have to impair 2 of the 3 senses before she cant
  find lamb
• audition important for lamb early in life
• visual more important later
• tendency to follow is highest during 1st 3 days
  of life

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Maternal Behavior

• Cattle
• bonds w/ calf in 1st 5h postpartum
• Horses
• audition, vision, olfaction
• orient to sound, confirm w/ vision
• Cats
• smell, sound for retrieval
• Dogs
• pups use voice and smell
• bitch hears the pup notices it was gone when she
  sees it

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Maternal Behavior

• Rejection/Problems
• swine will cannibalize
• esp. nervous primiparous gilts
• mastitis - sore udder - attack piglets
• sheep
• lamb could roll away from birth site, wont have
  amniotic smell
• leads to neglect
• may steal a lamb before she has own lamb,
• end up with twins
• mismothering increases w/ confinement at
  parturition

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Maternal Behavior

• Cattle
• smell can reject or not nurse
• Horses
• rejection or fear of suckling
• sore udder
• mare is Ok being around but wont tolerate
  suckling
• restrain, tranquilize, hand milk

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Maternal Behavior

• Fear of foal
• mare tries to escape
• kick at foal
• try to stimulate maternal defensiveness
• introduce 2nd horse
• attack foal
• will bite withers, throw, kick foal
• hasnt licked membranes off foal
• can use punishment, passive restraint, nurse mare

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Maternal Behavior

• Cats
• toms may kill kittens
• routine in lion prides
• cannibalism possible but rare
• Dogs
• rejection can occur esp. if C-section performed
• anesthetized when normally would be licking and
  smelling
• attack after parturition is rare

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Maternal Behavior

• Defense of young
• sow can be extremely dangerous bark
• basically, all dams, esp. w/ newborns, should be
  approached cautiously
• let dam get used to people around her young/litter