eli5:can baby animals reject their mothers ?
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Yes.
I grew up on a farm. We had cattle and hogs. Baby pigs would sometimes just reject their mom, and lay in the corner and after a day or two would die. Sows were in small pens, and we would sometimes try to rehome the babies. Sometimes it would work, sometimes not. As the pigs grew, we would often rehome “runts” and place a week old “runt” with a pen of 1-2 day old piglets to give them a better chance.
Cows and calves (cattle) would reject each other too. The rejections were rare, maybe a few percent of births, and it seemed to be about even between them. When the baby would refuse to eat we’d sometimes have to shove a tube down their throat twice a day for a week to tube-feed them. And we’d have to milk the mom too, (who never appreciated it!) to keep her milk flowing. Then one day they’d just “change their mind” and eat on their own. Sometimes we’d have to tie up the mom behind a gate that was modified so the calf could suckle, and “convince” her to accept her calf. Only a few times did the cow and calf both reject each other. Those pairs tried everyone’s patience to the maximum.
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