User:Accaughe/be bold

Being bold is important on Wikipedia. I am here trying to figure out how to make a wiki page Parenting

Female seals have been documented to have a gradual increase in trips for feeding throughout lactation. It has been found that mothers who have sons made longer foraging trips then the mothers who had daughters during the lactation period. When observing growth patterns in the male and female pups within two cohorts, it was recognized that the growth patterns were similar, however the males were seen to grow faster and weaned off nursing heavier in some years.

Diving (pups)

Diving begins in the New Zealand fur seal pups in the months leading up to weaning, where the pups are nursing less. It has been documented that the pups begin dives anywhere from the age of 6-10 months old, yet weaning is known to occur between the ages of 8 and 11 months, so the young pups don’t have a lot of time to get good and foraging. It is important for the pups to develop progressional nocturnal diving skills while they still have their mother's milk to fall back on if dives are unsuccessful. Age, physiological development, and experience are the important ingredients for a successful hunter. These factors are anticipated to be the main factors contributing to the development of the pups diving ability and behavior. This transitional period is a time of high risk and mortality in young pups, becoming nutritionally independent in a stage when your forging efficiency is rather low can be very challenging. Based on scat samples, it is expected that the pups start by eating cephalopods and eventually making their way to fish. This could just be a result of what was available during different times of the year.

Birthing

Females first arrive on the shore just a few days before giving birth. Prior to the start of giving birth, when they get close to labor they become very restless and toss around. When they are finally in labor, which they can be in for many hours, they lay down and toss their head in the air, straining forward on their fore flippers lifting their hind quarters laterally before slowly lowering their head down. This is a process they repeat until they finally give birth. The actual birth, starting from when the head is first seen can be as quick as 2 minutes. Where as if the pup comes out tail first it can take up to 6.5 minutes. Immediately after birth the mother begins frequently sniffing the newborn pup to better identify when she has to find it after a trip out to sea. The pups themselves can be active within an hour after birth, but it takes the mothers anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 days before leaving them to swim. It's not for another 6-12 days after giving birth that the mothers leave to feed. Even then the mothers don't tend to leave the pups for longer then 2 days. When the pups are about 21 days old they have been seen to congregate into little pods while their mothers are gone. When the females do return they only feed their own pups and have been seen to be hostile toward pups that are not her own.