Maternal deprivation affects goat kids' social behavior before and after weaning

Maternal deprivation has been shown to disrupt the development of neonates. Nevertheless, separating the young animals from their dams soon after birth is a common practice in dairy farming. We investigated the effects of maternal deprivation on goat kids' (Capra hircus) social behavior and social ontogeny before and after weaning. Twenty female kids were raised together with their dams (DR kids) and other lactating goats and kids, whereas 20 female kids were separated from their dams 3 days after birth and artificially reared together (AR kids). At weaning, each treatment group was split in half and moved into two new pens where they were mixed with the other treatment group. Social behaviors were recorded before and after weaning. Before weaning, AR kids were observed performing more play-fighting, racing, stepping on each other, and standing in contact with each other than DR kids, but AR allogroomed less and spent less time resting alone than DR kids. After weaning and mixing of the treatments, DR kids initiated more and received less agonistic interactions than AR kids, but this difference reduced across the 5 weeks of observations as AR kids appeared to progressively change their social behavior after interacting with DR kids.