Behaviour and growth intensity of dairy sheep lambs raised in nurseries

Abstract

The raising of lambs in nurseries is an effective way to breed lambs of dairy sheep. The aim of the study was to characterize selected ethological manifestations in lambs (n = 31) during the stay in the nursery. Lambs were gradually let out of the nursery to the group of mothers. During the settled 5 min interval several traits were recorded. “Beginning of suckling after opening the nursery“ (BS) was significantly affected by genotype of mother (P<0.05) and age of lambs (P<0.001). The trait “number of suckling” was significantly affected by litter size (P<0.001). Single lambs suckled 3.81 times at average, whereas twins suckled 2.78 times. The trait “total time of suckling” (TTS) was significantly affected by genotype of mother (P<0.05), litter size and age of lambs as well (P<0.001). TTS of single lambs was 152.29 seconds on average, whereas TTS of twins was 117.35 seconds (P<0.05). The interest in sucking the mothers and, also other ewes, decreased with increasing age of lambs. As a rule, lambs with later BS ended suckling later (r = 0.405+++). Lambs suckling more often suckled a shorter period of time as a rule (r = -0.527+++). TTS was negatively correlated with the weight of lambs (r = -0.190; P<0.05) and average daily gain (r = -0.211; P<0.01). The lighter and lower growth intensity lambs were, the longer interest in suckling was shown and, also, the longer period of time for suckling was needed. The correlation between the trait “number of attempts to suckle non-own mother” and average daily gain was non-significant i.e. no differences in growth intensity for lambs-thieves and lambs which suckle only own mothers were observed.