The sucking behaviour and milk intake of one- to three-week-old triplet lambs during natural and competitive suckling situations

摘要: Abstract Within triplet litters, light-born lambs are at greater risk of dying than heavier in the first week life. However, implications within-litter differences sucking behaviour for milk intake and growth beyond unclear. We hypothesized that within litter, triplets born lightest would still be one to three weeks age, these have lower lambs, among lamb ranks (heaviest, medium, or lightest-born litter) exacerbated a competitive situation. Triplets 10 litters were ranked according birth weight their measured two situations when they 8–17 days old. In morning session, undisturbed was recorded 100 min, after which separated from ewe four hours. They then returned 15 min. Measures live abdominal girth taken before each observation period estimate intake. At 8–17 days but medium heavy no longer differed (P = 0.002). During period, heavy-born sucked less often (P = 0.026) time overall (P = 0.007) gained similar lighter siblings (P = 0.299), indicating more efficient extracting milk. tended gain (P = 0.086) competed with medium-born teat not preferred by (P = 0.0005). These observations indicate feeders, work harder achieve same intake, intakes, contributing persistently weight. Thus, management strategies such as fostering supplemental feeding should focussed on triplets.