TY - JOUR ID - 129001276 TI - Effect of maternal presence on the development of social relationships among lambs. AU - Ligout, S. AU - Porter, Richard H. PY - 2004 DB - UniCat KW - Age. KW - Behavioral-development. KW - Birth. KW - Cage. KW - Choice. KW - Contact. KW - Development. KW - Discrimination. KW - Distress. KW - Ewe. KW - Ewes. KW - Experiment. KW - Group. KW - Interaction. KW - Interactions. KW - Investigation. KW - Lamb. KW - Lambs. KW - Maternal presence. KW - Maternal. KW - Mother. KW - Pair-association. KW - Play. KW - Preference. KW - Preferences. KW - Social discrimination. KW - Social interaction. KW - Social interactions. KW - Social-interaction. KW - Social. KW - Socialisation. KW - Socialization. KW - Stockperson. KW - Test. KW - Tests. KW - Triplet. KW - Twin lambs. KW - Twin preference. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:129001276 AB - We assessed the influence of mother ewes (Ovis aries) on the development of their lambs' discriminative social interactions. Experiment 1: twin lambs in one condition were housed with their mother in small groups (M lambs), while twins in a second condition were separated from their dam after birth and artificially reared together (AR lambs). Lambs' preference for their twin (T) versus a familiar penmate (F) was investigated at 4 weeks of age, using a simultaneous two-choice test. Experiment 2: 4-week-old mothered and artificially reared lambs were exposed repeatedly to a contact partner for long sessions over a 5-day period (the dam was absent during these contact sessions). Discrimination between the encountered partner (E) versus an unfamiliar individual (U) was assessed in a series of two-choice tests and pair distress tests. In the first experiment, mothered lambs responded discriminatively to T versus F individuals whereas artificially reared lambs did not display a preference. This suggests that the presence of the mother is necessary for the establishment of discriminative interactions between twins. Ewes may directly or indirectly foster proximal contact and thus mutual familiarisation between their twins. In the second experiment, lambs displayed no preference when given the choice between E and U individuals. Nevertheless, when paired with an E partner in a small cage, AR lambs, but not M lambs, bleated less than when tested with a U partner, which suggests that the former partner was recognised. Lack of discrimination of the E partner by M lambs may result from significantly lower investigation of the contact partner during their encounters, compared to AR lambs. Thus the dams affected their offspring's socialisation with peers even though they were not physically present during the encounters. Overall, these results show that the dam plays a prominent role in the development or her offspring's social relationships with siblings as well as with ot ER -