OLDER mothers make better mothers simply because they use their time more
efficiently—at least, mares do. People used to think that older mothers
spent more time with their young because as they age there is progressively less
time to have further offspring.
But ecologist Elissa Cameron and her colleagues at Massey University in New
Zealand studied feral mares and their foals. They discovered that older mothers
spent no more time with their offspring than their younger counterparts. Instead
they used their time more effectively, being most diligent during the critical
first twenty days of their foal’s life (Behavioural Ecology…
