Monitoring the General Behaviour and Daily Activity Patterns of Mouflon Sheep (Ovis orientalis cycloceros) in Captivity

In captivity the animal behavior is affected by environmental and captive conditions like enclosure size.The objective of the study was to document the general behavior of mouflon sheep(Ovis orientalis cycloceros) and to observe any obvious impact of seasons on general behavior of Mouflon sheep (Ovis orientalis cycloceros). The behavior of Mouflon sheep (Ovis orientalis cycloceros) was not well studied in Pakistan so the present study was conduct. Summer and winter study was conducted at Rachna wildlife and were compared with Changa Manga forest to observe well the behavior of mouflon sheep during dawn and dusk. In Rachna Wildlife park there were two enclosures for mouflon. Enclosure 1 houses 7 females and 1 male. Enclosure 2 houses 8 females and 2 males. They were kept separated during the entire study. The data was recorded by direct focal sampling .The activities recorded such as locomotion ,resting ,feeding, grooming ,reproduction, aggression ,head butt, visitor interaction ,licking, voice call excretion, were better displayed by adults. It was observed that visitor interaction would result social hierarchies among all mouflons. Further during feeding aggressive behavior was seen especially within the females.