The Role of Mother-Young Contact in the Development of Maternal Responsiveness in Djallonke Ewes

Observations were made of the maternal responsiveness of 42 single bearing Djallonke ewes to their respective lambs within a 5-minute test period. Mother and young were left together for varying periods (0 hours,6 hours,12 hours, 18 hours and 24 hours postpartum) and separated for 15 minutes prior to testing. The parameters measured were: number of low- pitched bleats by the young, number of acceptance at the udder, suckling time, number of high-pitched bleats, number of rejections at the udder and number of threats and butts directed towards the young. The first three parameters constituted acceptance while the last three constituted rejection. The effects of contact period, parity of the dam, sex and birth weight of the neonate on the aforementioned behavioural parameters were determined using the chi-square procedure. A large proportion (81%) of the ewes accepted their young while the remaining 19% behaved poorly. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were observed in maternal responsiveness among all the mother-young contact periods studied. Similarly, parity of the dam, sex and birth weight of the neonate had no significant influence (P > 0.05) on maternal responsiveness within the first few hours postpartum.