Project properties

Title Cats consuming natural prey or commercial foods – differences in eating behaviour
Group Behavioural Ecology
Project type thesis
Credits 36
Supervisor(s) Bonne Beerda, Guido Bosch
Examiner(s) Marc Naguib
Contact info bonne.beerda@wur.nl (BHE), guido.bosch@wur.nl (ANU)

Begin date 2018/02/01
End date 2020/01/01
Description Modern foods for pet cats are primarily designed to be safe, tasty and nutritious. The act of eating of such foods (i.e. bites, chews, swallowing) impacts on many aspects, like oral health and appetite regulation. Modern manmade foods for cats deviate considerably in physicochemical properties from natural prey. Differences in oral processing are likely to exists between modern foods and natural prey, but this has not been studied yet. In fact, how a cat exactly eats a mouse is still largely unclear. In this thesis you will build on previous thesis work and extend data on the microstructure of eating in cats. In particular required are data on cats eating small prey (i.e. rodents, birds) and eating modern foods (dry kibbled and moist) as well as a more extensive data analyses. For gaining insight in eating behaviour of modern foods, field work is likely required, which means recruiting owners with indoor-dwelling cats and recording of eating behaviour of these cats
Used skills Design experiments, behavioural observations, literature research, data analyses, scientific writing and presenting
Requirements