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ARTICLE DATE: July 1990
CITATION:
Bond, J. C., & Lindburg, D. G. (1990). Carcass feeding of captive cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus): The effects of a naturalistic feeding program on oral health and psychological well-being. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 26(4), 373–382.
ABSTRACT:
Hypothesized that providing a more naturalistic diet to captive cheetahs would enhance their physical and psychological well-being and result in increased breeding success. Feeding sessions of 5 Ss were videotaped and analyzed. Ss were fed either carcasses or a commercial diet. Ss receiving carcasses fed longer, spent more time smelling their food, chewed their food more, and used their molars to slice the food more often than did Ss fed the commercial diet. Although commercial diets meet the nutritional requirements of captive carnivores, more naturalistic diets may better meet their psychological and nutritional needs by taking into account such factors as diet consistency, texture, temperature, palatability, and variability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)