Nursing behavior and early development of impala at San Diego Wild Animal Park

摘要: Because impala are commonly exhibited and handreared in zoos their natural nursing behavior had not previously been studied, we examined early development five calves housed a large, naturalistic enclosure. Calves were observed for the first 5 weeks of life during 12-hr continuous watches 20-min focal animal samples. Total daily suckling time decreased while grazing feeding on concentrates increased from 1–5 age. An increasing proportion bouts terminated by dam as matured, with dams terminating almost 70% week. Suckling success maternal grooming also after week I, suggesting that mothers cut back offspring. Rapid decline mother-young spatial proximity concomitant increase calf association age-mates over suggests bond is weak ephemeral impala. example implications our results improving handrearing programs would be newborn should started daylight schedule one bottle-feeding every three hours, they allowed to gorge themselves at any these feedings.