Impact of allosucking on growth of farmed red deer calves (Cervus elaphus)

It is generally presumed that allosucking brings benefits to the allosuckin g infants. Nevertheless, the data supporting such a presumption are rare. T he Rim of the study was to determine whether allosucking has any impact on growth rates of the allosucking calves. Fifty pregnant hinds were observed between 28 May (1st day of calving) and 2 September (abrupt weaning of all calves) on a red deer farm at Vimperk, South Bohemia, tile Czech Republic. Of the 50 calves born the growth curve was calculated for 39 calves. During their 1st month of life these calves were observed in 1015 sticking bouts. In 690 cases the calves sucked from maternal hinds and in 325 cases non-ma ternal hinds. Only 25.64% of calves sticked exclusively from maternal hinds . The prevailing type of sucking behaviour was a combination of sucking fro m maternal hinds and allosucking (74.36%). Calves sucking from maternal and non-maternal hinds showed 1.6-fold higher sucking frequency than did calve s feeding from maternal kinds only. Our results indicate that to some exten d allonursing behaviour of the hind may affect their calves' feeding behavi our. The more non-filial calves the maternal hind nursed, the higher freque ncy of the sucking by their calves occurred. The groups of calves did not d iffer in birth weight. With increasing age, tile relative body weight incre ased faster in calves sucking maternal hinds only than in calves sucking ma ternal and non-maternal hinds. This gain in body weight was not essentially influenced by the fact whether or not tire calf's maternal hind nursed non -filial or exclusively filial calves. However, at weaning (99 days), the lo west body weight occurred in allosucking calves whose maternal hinds were a llonursing. The results suggest that allosucking dues not mean an extra pro fit to the allosucker. Instead, in our subjects, allosucking was rather att ributed to compensation of nutritional requirements based on a combination of various factors, such as discrete differences in body weight at birth an d also later and allonursing of the maternal kind.