We compared feeding motivation and feeding-related stereotypies of pregnant gilts fed high-fibre (HF) or concentrate (C) diets in one or two daily meals.
Twenty-one multiparous sows were used in a Latin square design, from days 7 to 90 of gestation, to test the effect of fibre and food levels on feeding motivation and feeding-related stereotypies.
We cross-referenced any treatment-related changes in the subjects' affective and motivational state by employing tests of feeding motivation [e.g. 41,42], anhedonia (sucrose consumption tests [43]), and anxiety-like states [44 47].
Regulation of food intake, then, must hinge on the physiological mechanisms of the feeding motivation.
The signals converge on the brain mechanisms for the feeding motivation over nervous and, possibly, humoural (chemical) pathways.
High and low levels of feeding motivation are the objective counterparts of the everyday concepts of hunger and satiety.
The contents of these messages, in other words, are primary determinants of the level of feeding motivation (for other influences see below Relation of feeding to other functions).
Here they have effects of two kinds: (1) if signals from the four regions report increased fuel contents, the feeding motivation is lowered (satiety is raised), and (2) if taste, and perhaps other (e.g., visual), receptors are stimulated by palatable food the feeding motivation is increased.
Feeding motivation was not affected by diet or straw.
The study objective was to assess the effects of limit feeding dairy heifers on behavior patterns and feeding motivation.
