Postpartum development of the mother-young relationship in goats

A first experiment was carried out to verify whether a goat may label her kid through licking and nursing in order to discriminate between her own and two alien kids. Furthermore, it was assessed how long after birth a kid needs to be along with its mother in order to be rejected by another goat and to be recognized by its own dam. All the 18 goats tested at 2 h accepted their own kid, whereas ten of them rejected both aliens; all the 20 goats tested at 4 h accepted their own young, whereas 17 rejected the alien isolated kid and 18 refused the alien labelled kid. In a second experiment physical contact, licking and nursing were prevented. All the 25 maternal goats accepted their own kids, whereas 11 of them rejected the alien. These two studies indicate that when the goat is left undisturbed with her kid after kidding, maternal selectivity is developed within 4 h.