Development and validation of a behavioral acclimation protocol for cats to respiration chambers used for indirect calorimetry studies

• Published in: The FASEB journal 2010-04, Vol.24 (S1), p.lb269-lb269
• Main Authors: Shoveller, Anna Kate, Duncan, Ian J.H., Atkinson, Jim L., Gooding, Margaret A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0892-6638; 1530-6860
• DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.lb269

Cats exposed to stressful and novel environments initiate stress responses as evidenced by behavioural and physiological changes which, in turn, modify energy requirement and metabolism leading to the collection of unreliable results from nutritional trials conducted on stressed cats. 14 cats (10 ± 2 months) were subjected to an 11 week acclimation procedure to adapt cats to restriction within a chamber used for calorimetry studies. Cats were acclimated to the chambers on weeks 1–3, the study room on weeks 4–6 and increasing restriction periods of 1 to 20 hrs within the chamber on weeks 7–11. Ten additional cats (11 ± 1 month), used as controls, were subjected to 5 hrs of restriction without prior chamber or study room exposure to compare responses. Stress level, feed intake, fearfulness and eliminations were recorded. Cat‐Stress‐Scores (CSS) and latencies to approach a novel object peaked on weeks 4 and 7 (P