Changes

==Introduction==

==Introduction==

The weaning process is an important part of the kitten’s behavioural development and changes in the queen’s behaviour toward the kittens at this time will have a significant effect on their behaviour as adults. For the first three weeks of life the queen spends up to 70% of her time caring for the kittens and, at this stage of development, they receive reward for their suckling behaviour on a continuous schedule. From the third week onward this behaviour begins to change and the kittens begin to show more demanding behaviour toward the queen who in turn becomes less tolerant of them and begins to spend increasing amounts of time away from the nest. At this stage, the queen may discourage the kittens from suckling by adopting certain body postures and even when she allows them to commence suckling she may move away before the feeding routine is complete, leaving the kittens to drop from her nipples one by one as she exits the kittening box. In effect, the kittens have now been placed on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement and the reward of a full feed is not always available to them. This results in a sense of frustration but the kittens learn to deal with that emotional response and return to a steady state of emotion without recourse to aggression. As the kittens develop further and become more mobile and independent, the mother begins to take a back seat in the feeding process and the emphasis moves from the provision of milk by the queen to the supply of nutrition from prey items, which are brought back to the kittens. In the early stages prey will be killed by the queen, but later the kittens will need to learn how to dispatch their own prey, thus disabled and then active live prey will be supplied by the queen. The killing of prey also contains elements of delayed reward and frustration so kittens learn to tolerate what is essentially a normal emotional state. In this situation frustration is also focussed on the natural process of killing prey, rather than at the parent or other conspecifics. By the end of this stage of the weaning process, the kittens are far more independent and look away from their mother in order to find food. She is no longer the provider of their nutrition and, as their relationship in the context of feeding alters, so does the level of social dependency. The kitten is now ready to act as a solitary hunter and to start to practice the adult behaviours that will ensure its ultimate survival. During the hand rearing process the first stage of continuous nutritional reinforcement is adequately fulfilled, but the process of feeding on demand is often continued past the third week of life because people are concerned about ensuring the kittens receive enough food. This means that early tolerance to frustration is not conditioned. When the time comes to introduce solid food, they often find that the kittens are reluctant to sample the new food and, in order to encourage them to eat, hand rearers will often put food onto their fingers. One reason for the lack of interest in solid food may be that in mammals some chemicals and flavours derived from the mother’s diet will find their way into her milk and provide the first step in conditioning food preference. Replacement milk does not contain any such flavours so hand-reared kittens fail to recognise the solid food they are presented with. There is also a lack of maternal feeding behaviours for the kittens to model. One of the consequences of this is that the person remains the focus of the feeding experience and, instead of encouraging the kitten to function independently, it is encouraged to remain in close contact with its rearer. This can lead to problems later when the owner is unable to deliver rewards when they are expected. The kitten also fails to develop a tolerance to frustration because the feeding process does not involve any delayed reinforcement or predatory behaviour.`12

The weaning process is an important part of the kitten’s behavioural development and changes in the queen’s behaviour toward the kittens at this time will have a significant effect on their behaviour as adults. For the first three weeks of life the queen spends up to 70% of her time caring for the kittens and, at this stage of development, they receive reward for their suckling behaviour on a continuous schedule. From the third week onward this behaviour begins to change and the kittens begin to show more demanding behaviour toward the queen who in turn becomes less tolerant of them and begins to spend increasing amounts of time away from the nest. At this stage, the queen may discourage the kittens from suckling by adopting certain body postures and even when she allows them to commence suckling she may move away before the feeding routine is complete, leaving the kittens to drop from her nipples one by one as she exits the kittening box. In effect, the kittens have now been placed on an intermittent schedule of reinforcement and the reward of a full feed is not always available to them. This results in a sense of frustration but the kittens learn to deal with that emotional response and return to a steady state of emotion without recourse to aggression. As the kittens develop further and become more mobile and independent, the mother begins to take a back seat in the feeding process and the emphasis moves from the provision of milk by the queen to the supply of nutrition from prey items, which are brought back to the kittens. In the early stages prey will be killed by the queen, but later the kittens will need to learn how to dispatch their own prey, thus disabled and then active live prey will be supplied by the queen. The killing of prey also contains elements of delayed reward and frustration so kittens learn to tolerate what is essentially a normal emotional state. In this situation frustration is also focussed on the natural process of killing prey, rather than at the parent or other conspecifics. By the end of this stage of the weaning process, the kittens are far more independent and look away from their mother in order to find food. She is no longer the provider of their nutrition and, as their relationship in the context of feeding alters, so does the level of social dependency. The kitten is now ready to act as a solitary hunter and to start to practice the adult behaviours that will ensure its ultimate survival. During the hand rearing process the first stage of continuous nutritional reinforcement is adequately fulfilled, but the process of feeding on demand is often continued past the third week of life because people are concerned about ensuring the kittens receive enough food. This means that early tolerance to frustration is not conditioned. When the time comes to introduce solid food, they often find that the kittens are reluctant to sample the new food and, in order to encourage them to eat, hand rearers will often put food onto their fingers. One reason for the lack of interest in solid food may be that in mammals some chemicals and flavours derived from the mother’s diet will find their way into her milk and provide the first step in conditioning food preference. Replacement milk does not contain any such flavours so hand-reared kittens fail to recognise the solid food they are presented with. There is also a lack of maternal feeding behaviours for the kittens to model. One of the consequences of this is that the person remains the focus of the feeding experience and, instead of encouraging the kitten to function independently, it is encouraged to remain in close contact with its rearer. This can lead to problems later when the owner is unable to deliver rewards when they are expected. The kitten also fails to develop a tolerance to frustration because the feeding process does not involve any delayed reinforcement or predatory behaviour.`12