The Distance Between Suffolk Ewes and Lambs during the Outside Nursing Period from One Month after Parturition

Abstract

The spatial relationship between the Suffolk ewe and her lamb placed outside at one month after parturition was investigated for the purpose of obtaining basic data for setting up proper sheep raising circumstances. Continuous twenty-four hour observations were performed by a video-recording system at one week, two weeks, four weeks, six weeks and eight weeks after the date they were moved outside, at the fenced area (5m×5m), using four ewe-lamb dyads. The distance between the ewe and her lamb was calculated at each one-minute time interval on a still picture. The spatial behaviour of Suffolk ewe-lamb dyad changed with the lambs’ growth. The mean percentage of the ewe-lamb distance closer than 2m was 67.3% for daytime and 69.9% for nighttime at one week after one month of age. Then, the ewe-lamb distance in nighttime showed a tendency to become further, and the rate of the distance further than 3m was 54.7% for six weeks after one month of age and 42.7% for eight weeks after one month of age, respectively. The distance between the ewe and her lamb showed an increase during the nighttime with the lambs’ growth, because of the infrequent feeding behaviour at night and the decrease in sucking behaviour caused by the decrease in the ewes’ milk production. From the results obtained in such a narrow fenced-in area, it was apparent that the space allowance of the Suffolk ewe-lamb dyad, in which a lamb can choose to be more than 5m apart from the mother occasionally, is desirable.