High perinatal mortality in sheep flocks worldwide remains a major economic and welfare issue. Maternal behaviour and lamb vigour are both considered major variables affecting lamb survival, but there is little data to describe their relative importance. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between lamb vigour and maternal behaviour at parturition. With the increase in hill ewes being crossed to longwool breeds there is an interest in the relative survivability of these lambs. This study compared the behaviour of Mule [Bluefaced Leicester x Blackface] lambs with purebred Scottish Blackface lambs.

Data on 32 third parity single and twin-bearing Blackface ewes lambing indoors were collected by focal animal observations on the ewe's grooming behaviour. These observations included details of the time spent grooming specific areas of the lamb's body and also general activity and udder-seeking behaviour of the lambs. Observations lasted 10 minutes and were made at parturition and then at 30 and 90 minute intervals. The data was transformed by arcsin. for proportions, or log, for frequencies, and analysed by Analysis of Variance,