Nursing Patterns & Mothers Milk
Among many mammals, lactating females may have extended periods of time in between nursing bouts. This is often the case for females who “cache” or “park” their young in nests, dens, or burrows while they depart to forage more efficiently unencumbered by the presence of the young (parents, you know what I am talking about ). The egg-laying echidna is an excellent, if totally weird, example. After hatching from the egg inside the mother’s pouch, the young— known as a puggle —consumes milk secreted from a patch on the mother’s tummy. Once the puggle is too large for the pouch, lactating echidnas dig nursery burrows. Here the young waits to nurse 3 to 6 DAYS between mother’s visits (1). Maternal foraging trips and inter-nursing intervals have also been well-studied in other species, particularly in seals (2) and rabbits (3). These inter-nursing intervals lead to "high-fat" milk (aka energetically dense) (4, 5). A comparison among prosimian primates showed that indeed the spe