Abstract
Relationships among 16 behavioral variants of virgin, pregnant and lactating female mice were investigated by factor analysis. In total, 28 mice from C3H/He, C57BL/6, DBA/2 and DDD inbred strains were used. The variants analyzed were 3 from open-field activities, 4 from nest-buildings, 7 from spontaneous behaviors, and 2 from synthetics.
Eighty percent of the cumulative eugen-value could be classified into 6 factors. Factor 1 seemed to be related to the complex locomotion; Factor 2 to the specific spontaneous behaviors at pregnant stage; Factor 3 to the simple locomotion, and Factor 4 to the emotionality. The results obtained suggest that the behavior of collecting and manufacturing of the nest-material as well as the locomotion behavior of inside and outside areas of the open-field, was controlled by different mechanisms. The characteristic feature to be adsorbed in a single behavior seemed to correlate with the low milk yield in the mouse.
