Surgery – Means for introducing or removing material from body for... – Treating material introduced into or removed from body...
Patent
1994-05-27
1996-12-10
Green, Randall L.
Surgery
Means for introducing or removing material from body for...
Treating material introduced into or removed from body...
604290, 128898, A61M 3100
Patent
active
055825923
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to artificial animal foster mothers, and more particularly to a technique for artificially inducing non-pregnant animals to act as foster mothers.
In the field of animal husbandry the rearing of young animals can be a serious problem if there are more young requiring feeding than there are available lactating mothers. In particular, young animals which are orphans or which come from a multiple-birth group of siblings may require fostering. Even if suitable foster mothers are available, the problem of maternal bonding/maternal rejection of foster animals has to be overcome before fostering can be successful.
The present invention can provide suitable foster mothers from the population of non-pregnant female animals and it can provide such foster mothers who exhibit desirable maternal behavior (i.e. bonding to the fostered young animal rather than rejecting it).
The technique of the present invention is now described in detail with reference to the use of ewes to foster lambs, but it is to be understood that the invention in its broadest aspects is not limited to sheep rearing and extends to all mammalian animal species.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Each year a number of orphan and triplet lambs have to be reared artificially. The most common method for rearing these animals, in large flocks, is to place them in groups on milk bars without any maternal care. Not only is this procedure costly and labor intensive, but it also deprives the lambs of maternal care which can lead to the development of social and sexual abnormalites in adulthood. Further, animals raised on milk bars cannot derive the full immunization benefit which would normally follow from the antibodies passed on to them through a ewe's milk. It is therefore clearly preferable from a welfare, health and economic standpoint to raise orphan and triplet lambs with proper foster mothers. During the past 7 years we have attempted to establish how lactation and maternal behavior are stimulated in the sheep, and what controls the formation of the selective recognition bond between the ewe and its lambs. The primary aims of this work have been to establish reliable protocols for (a) Fostering orphan lambs onto maternal ewes, to avoid the necessity of rearing them without maternal care on milk bars and (b) To improve poor quality maternal care, particularly in primiparous animals, which also contributes to increased mortality and suffering in lambs. The main approach adopted to provide these protocols has been to investigate the importance of the various physiological changes occurring in sheep during pregnancy, parturition and post-partum for the control of lactation and maternal behavior.
A series of studies has established that in sheep, the primary stimulus for inducing maternal responses towards new born lambs is feedback from the vagina and cervix reaching the brain. Thus, maternal behavior can be induced in non-pregnant sheep simply by mechanically stimulating the vagina and cervix. Conversely, blocking the signals from the vagina and cervix reaching the brain, using epidural anaesthesia, prevents ewes from showing normal post-partum maternal behavior.
The changes in blood concentrations of progesterone and oestradiol which occur during pregnancy are essential for the production of lactation and for the ability of stimulation of the vagina and cervix to induce maternal behavior. These steroids are not however, as had previously been proposed, the major factors controlling the stimulation of this behavior. Maternal experience also plays a role, and we have found that nulliparous ewes are less responsive to the effects of stimulation of the vagina and cervix, following short term treatment with progesterone and/or oestradiol, than multiparous ones, and this may partly explain why primiparous ewes are often poor mothers.
Stimulation of the vagina and cervix during parturition is also important for the formation of the selective olfactory recognition bond between a ewe and its lambs and we have found that artificial mec
REFERENCES:
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Alexander V.
Green Randall L.
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
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