An investigation into different methods of encouraging voluntary intake of food in anorexic cats
Rosemary Dorricott
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Anorexia is a common condition in cats associated with many underlying illnesses, and effective nutritional support is imperative to ensure rapid recovery and survival. To allow the gastrointestinal tract function to be maintained, manual feeding techniques, undertaken without the use of feeding tubes or intravenous catheters, should be used. Although various techniques have been researched and found to be effective in encouraging voluntary food intake, this research was undertaken to identify the most successful manual enteral feeding technique for encouraging anorexic cats to eat voluntarily. A randomized block design was used to undertake this research concluding that the use of hand feeding or feeding strong smelling, warmed and moist food were more effective than feeding the diet usually fed at home.
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