Hand-feeding and gentling influence early-weaned lambs' attachment responses to their stockperson.

Abstract

Artificially reared herbivores are highly dependent on the stockperson at an early age in order to learn to drink from an artificial milk provider. This period of training may be a determinant for the animals' subsequent responses toward humans. However, long-term responses may also depend on the human contact (e.g., visual, physical interactions, gentling, and handling) provided to the young lambs after this training period. We examined whether different levels of subsequent contact (no visual and physical contact, stroking, and feeding reward) affect long-term attachment responses of lambs to the caretaker that provided the subsequent contact, after a common initial training period for artificial feeding provided by another person. Ewe lambs (n = 45) were artificially reared from multinippled buckets in groups of three. All the lambs were trained by a stockperson (S1) to suck from the bucket (4.4 +/- .3 sessions of 3 min per animal for the first 2 d of life). Subsequently, 15 lambs received no further human contact (T0). Fifteen other lambs received only stroking from a second stockperson (S2) for 6 min three times a day during the first 4 wk (T1). The remaining 15 lambs (T2) were stroked and bottle-fed by S2 during the same posttraining period as for T1. Tests were performed at 4, 6 (just before weaning), 9, and 13 wk of age in an unfamiliar arena marked in a grid pattern. The test procedure included three successive parts: 1) isolation for 1 min; 2) S2 presence for 2 min;…