Читать книгу Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff - Группа авторов - Страница 60

The neonatal period consists of the first two postnatal weeks. The queen encircles the kittens with her body and legs immediately after the birth of all of the kittens. The kittens are suckling within an hour of birth, and a loose teat order is established by 12 hours post‐parturition (Ewer 1960; Houpt 2018). The kittens engage in little other than suckling and sleeping during the neonatal stage. Waste elimination is initiated by the queen via grooming of the perineal region. Neonate kittens do not have the ability to thermoregulate, and thus body temperature is maintained by huddling with their littermates and mother (Jensen et al. 1980; Olmstead et al. 1979). Tactile, thermal, and olfactory stimuli help the kitten orient to the queen and littermates, as the eyes and ears are closed during much of the neonatal period. Orienting to the queen’s abdomen and suckling are highly reflexive behaviors (Raihani et al. 2009), although nursing is largely initiated by the queen during the first two weeks. Purring is observed in nursing kittens and may serve to communicate active suckling to the mother (Bradshaw 2017). The first set of teeth erupt between 2 and 5 weeks of age with adult teeth erupting at approximately 12 weeks. Movement at this age occurs by limb paddling or pulling of the body by the front limbs due to weaker neuromusculature of the hindlimbs in this early stage.

Kittens are usually able to hear by the fifth day of life, although the external pinnae do not become erect and the ear canal does not open for another few days. Eyes open during the second week, and several factors can influence the exact timing. The eyes of kittens born to younger mothers tend to open earlier than kittens born to older mothers, female kittens’ eyes are more likely to open prior to males, and excessively dark conditions hasten eye opening. The timing of eye opening is also heritable (Braastad and Heggelund 1984). Vision becomes the kitten’s dominant sensory guide once the eyes are open.

Early maternal care is another important environmental factor in healthy kitten behavioral development. Kittens separated from their mother and hand reared by humans from two weeks of age were more fearful and aggressive toward people and other cats, more sensitive to novel stimuli, developed poor social and parenting skills, and did not learn as well as kittens raised by their mother (Mellen 1992).

Scruffing is a maternal behavior of grasping the kitten’s loose skin around the neck and shoulders with her teeth. The kitten reflexively goes limp and quiet. This allows the queen to move her kittens to new dens with a lower risk of detection from predators. In free‐roaming situations, a queen typically moves den sites multiple times prior to weaning of the litter. Some cats may retain this limp or trance‐like state reflex into adulthood, but many do not, and scruffing by a human during handling usually induces distress (Moody et al. 2020).