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Título:

COMPARISON OF DAILY WEIGHT GAIN OF MOTHER-FED AND HAND-REARED MARSH DEER FAWNS (BLASTOCERUS DICHOTOMUS)

Resumo:

In ex-situ conservation programs of captive deer, it is important to ensure the individual development through observation, weighing and daily evaluation of weight gain in their first months of life. Thus, it is essential to adequately bottle-fed fawns that could not be cared by the doe, in this cases we use goat’s milk as an alternative by the availability and nutritional composition. The present study compared the daily weight gain average of two groups of marsh deer fawns (Blastocerus dichotomus) under two feeding routines. Fifty fawns were observed, of which 28 (12 males and 16 females) were maternal-nursed and 22 (8 males and 14 females) were hand-reared –after 24h of birth and bottle-fed with pasteurized goat milk three times a day. The animals were weighed from day 0 to day 77 after birth. The daily weight gain mean and standard deviation were calculated for both groups. Data were analyzed by Statistical Analysis Software (SPSS version 28. 0) for normality of the groups by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test at p>0.05 and the differences between the means were evaluated by Student's t-test at a significance level of p<0.05. The mother-fed group obtained a statistically higher daily weight gain mean (222.48 ± 119.35 g) than the hand-reared group (161.17 ± 91.53 g) KS (p=0.2) and the T tests (p=0,0005). These findings suggest that fawns under maternal care gained more daily weight than the hand-reared individuals. The groups means were influenced by routines, where the limited number of bottle-fed per day negatively affects the daily gain of the hand-reared group relative to the maternal care group that was freely to suckle. In addition, the differences between the milk compositions that was available of each group may have reflected on the means. Therefore, more studies must be done to ascertain if this difference is enough to compromise their immunity, sexual maturity and other parameters.
Keyword: bottle-fed, cervids, maternal-care, newborn.

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