What is parental behaviour?
Behaviour expressed by parents towards their offspring - providing food, shelter, warmth and social contact
What is the parent-offspring conflict theory?
Parental cost is huge, offspring benefit
“offspring are evolutionarly selected to demand more resources than the mother is selected to provide”
parents need some benefit or they might reject offspring
What are some reproductive strategies?
- Litter size (large litter, increase population)
- Developmental stage of young (altricial vs precocial)
- Parental investment - non (salmon), single parent, pair-bond
Oligotocous vs polytocous
- Oligotocous: one or few young at each birth
- Polytocous: large litter at each birth
Which animals are altricial-Oligotocous, precocial-oligotocous, Altricial-polytocouus, and precocial-polytocous?
- Altricial Oligotocous: Primates
- Precocial Oligotocous: Sheep, horse, cattle
- Altricial Polytocouus: Carnivores, rodents
- Precocial Polytocous: Pigs, chickens, ducks
precocialpolytocous is the most efficient
Predator vs prey, single vs multiple, pair-bond vs polygamous for parental care
- Predators tend to be altricial (leave offspring to hunt)
- Prey need to follow the herd, safety in numbers
- Single offspring tend to be precocial (most herbivores)
- Pair-bonds tend to be altricial
What are the two evolutionary strategies for population growth (r vs K selection)?
“r” strategist (mice, oyster) - polytocous
- Unstable environment
- large number of offspring
- little or no parental care
- low survivorship
- Fast maturing
- short life expectancy
- type iii survivorship pattern (never reach carrying capacity)
“K” strategist (elephant)
* Stable environment
* small number of offspring
* large amnount of parental care
* high survivorship
* reach maturity later
* long life expectancy
* type i or ii survivorship pattern
look at graphs for this
What are the two styles of care that precocial ungulates follow?
- Hiders (leave offspring) - deer, cattle
- Followers - sheep, goats
Cattle- are normally considered hiders but can also behave as followers
What is nursing, suckling, and sucking?
- Nursing - action of the mother, providing milk
- Suckling - action of offspring to obtain nutrients
- Sucking - action of offspring directed to non-teat
What is ethology?
emphasizes studying animals in their natural environment
What are behaviours at parturition in ewes?
- Ewes separate from flock to give birth
- Form strong bond with lamb
- Return to flock with lamb within a few hours
- Follower species
How do ewes use shelter at parturition?
- Provided either ‘gunny sack’ or grass hedges in lambing paddock
- Ewes would give birth in close proximity to the hedges
- ‘Sheltering’ behaviour increased if ewes were recently shorn
- Hedges improved lamb survival
What is “mismothering”?
Pregnant ewe steals offspring of another ewe, then when she has her lambs, she ignores her own
What happened when lambing occured in cubicles?
- ‘Stealing’ was reduced (mismothering)
- Ewes did not seperate from their lamb by more than 1.2 m
- Lamb did not leave birth site more than 1 m
- Twins never separated by more than 0.7 m
How do ewes recognize lambs?
- Birth fluids (strong attraction - cause of mismothering)
- Individual lamb odour
- Later - visual and auditory recognition
How do hill sheep and lowland sheep differ in cues?
- Hill sheep: rely more on auditory cues
- Lowland sheep: rely more on vision
lambs are opportunistic sucklers and they use visual and auditory cues to recognize ewes
What post-responsive measures can be done for ewes after lambing in fostering?
- Odour transfer
- Forced adoption - tehtering, fear
- Vaginal-cervical stimulation (sometimes lambing happens so fast, this helps release more oxytocin)
What is inclusive fitness theory?
a family member helps mother in the group produce offspring
Alticial vs precocial
- Altricial - hatched or born early in development (carnivores, rodents)
- Precocial - Hatched or born late in development (ungulates, chicks)
What is parental investment and differential investment?
- parental investment- begins with gamete production
- differential investment - by males and females
- Eggs- larger investment, limited number (choosy mate selection)
- Sperm - smaller investment, large numbers (less discriminating mate selection)
What are important concepts that we learn from studies?
- Birth site selection
- maternal responsiveness to lambs
- strong attraction to birth fluids
- follower vs hider
these can be applied to domestic management
How does ewe and lamb separation occur?
- Initially followers- remain close to ewes
- later - separation between ewe and lamb increases after several weeks
- creche formation
How does weaning occur in sheep?
- gradual reduction of milk intake
- nersing bouts- shift from on demand to being controlled by ewe (when demands may impact the next offspring or when there are poor resources)
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