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The Many Axes of Deer Lactation

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Abstract

In undomesticated animals information about the production and composition of milk over time is still scarce. In general, for most mammals it is known that milk composition changes across lactation, is different for male and female offspring, and even that marsupials, such as kangaroos, can simultaneously produce milk of different compositions for young of different ages. Such parallel milk production of differing compositions has not yet been studied in single-offspring placental mammals, but may help to explain behavioural processes like allosuckling (feeding the young of other adults) and lateralized suckling preferences. In this study we analysed the production and composition of milk in red deer throughout the lactation period and now confirm for the first time that there are axial differences present. The front teats, which are the favoured suckling positions of the deer’s offspring, produce milk with a greater protein-to-fat ratio. Also, from the beginning of lactation the yield is greater on the left side, the side preferred by calves in all of the studied species, both at population and individual level. The links between milk production and calf behaviour in deer deserve further study.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank to Isidoro Cambronero, Bernardo Albiñana and Fulgencio Cebrián for their help with the collection of samples; Sara Pira for her assistance with data processing; and Chris Johnson for professional language editing. This paper has been funded by the projects AGL2012-38898 (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain), MZERO0716 (Ministry of Agriculture, Czech Republic), and IGA-20165008 (Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech Republic).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Science and Food Processing, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcka 129, Prague 6 - Suchdol, 165 21, Czech Republic

    Francisco Ceacero

  2. Sección de Recursos Cinegéticos y Ganaderos, Instituto de Desarrollo Regional (IDR), Campus Universitario s/n, 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Andrés J. García, Tomás Landete-Castillejos, Francisco Hidalgo, Martina P. Serrano & Laureano Gallego

  3. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología Agroforestal y Genética, ETSIA, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Campus Universitario s/n, 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Andrés J. García, Tomás Landete-Castillejos, Francisco Hidalgo, Martina P. Serrano & Laureano Gallego

  4. Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha - Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), Ronda de Toledo s/n, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Andrés J. García, Tomás Landete-Castillejos, Martina P. Serrano & Laureano Gallego

  5. Department of Ethology, Institute of Animal Science, Přátelství 815, 104 01, Praha - Uhříněves, Czech Republic

    Martina Komárková

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  1. Francisco Ceacero
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Correspondence to Francisco Ceacero.

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Ceacero, F., García, A.J., Landete-Castillejos, T. et al. The Many Axes of Deer Lactation. J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia 21, 123–129 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10911-016-9363-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10911-016-9363-6

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