Nursery-Rearing of Infant Rhesus Monkeys(Macaca mulatta)

578 rhesus infants were separated from breeding females before mating season and were used for nursery rearing experiment at Xishuangbanna,Yunnan National Laboratory Primate Center of China (YNLPCC) during 1984-1988.The weaning age varies from 1 to 230 days after birth,with an average of 113 days.91.5% of infants were survival in the first rearing year.In the infants died within the first rearing year,61.8% of them occurred in the first mont;the death rate of infants weaned age under two month old (≤60 days) was 20% and which of weaned age over two month old was 6.9%.64.7% of death were resulted from pneumonia and enteropathies.The nursery-rearing infants of male under ten months of age and female under nine months of age have a rapid growth rate,their regressive equation on the growth of body weight (grams) are:W=145.6t+403.5 (male,under 10 months of age);W=144.2t+372(female,under 9 months of age).We believe that separating infants from their mothers before mating season could improved female fertility.