Abstract and SummaryThe female of the mouthbrooding cichlidPseudocrenilabrus multicolorfrom East Africa takes up her eggs during spawning and carries them continuously in her mouth for approximately 10 days at 27 °C. Then the young — now able to swim — are released from her mouth. A former study showed that the point of release is under the control of an internal timing program in the mother which can be only slightly modified by age‐specific stimuli from the brood. The present investigation is concerned with how brood deprivation influences mouthbrooding in first spawners.If the brood is removed from the mother's mouth for longer periods of time (several days), the internal timing program can be split into two components that control different behavioural parameters:1Brood care motivation, i.e. the readiness to take up brood into the mouth and keep it there but not eat it, is maintained up to 10 to 11 days after spawning (at 27 °C), regardless of the duration of previous brood deprivation.2In contrast, the point of release of brood from the mouth is retarded as a linear function of the duration of previous brood deprivation. Additionally, brood older than 10 days at the point of release is released one day earlier than younger brood.The mechanisms of these different time‐measuring systems are discussed with the aid of a model which assumes internal hour‐glass timers. The adaptive significance of the mechanisms rema