Regulation of feed intake
The regulation of feed intake in animals is regulated by the hunger and satiety control system. Hunger is defined as the urge to eat food, while the satisfaction of this urge is called satiety. Hunger usually triggers the consumption of a meal if there is free access to the food. However, satiety leads to the end of the meal. Of course, an animal can start to eat without being hungry. This applies, for example, when a full animal is offered a particularly tasty feed. The appetite is therefore defined as the desire for a certain food.
In addition to the sensory properties of the feed, metabolic factors can also play a role. So eat for example at acetonaemia diseased cows prefer hay as fodder . Healthy cows, on the other hand, prefer the opposite. This example shows that appetite is very variable. There are often learning processes involved. The animal is able to associate the digestibility or indigestibility with the sensory, in particular the taste properties of the feed concerned and therefore reacts to indigestible feed with a lack of appetite . In this context one speaks of learned taste aversions.
The consumption depressions that occur with certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies (e.g. vitamin B1 deficiency or zinc deficiency ) are partly due to taste aversions learned in this way. In contrast to the mammal, the bird does not associate the taste, but rather the visual properties (color, shape) of the food with the digestibility or indigestibility of the respective food. This often leads to death, especially in the case of seabirds, from ingested plastic waste floating in the oceans .
Many findings suggest that the inappetence that occurs as an accompanying symptom of many diseases in mammals is partly an expression of a learned taste aversion, even if the disease is not caused by feeding. In the case of many diseases, the animal seems to wrongly associate the disturbed well-being with the taste properties of the food consumed during the development of the disease and therefore reacts with a lack of appetite for the food in question . In such cases, you can temporarily stimulate feed intake by changing feed .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chris Jordan: Message from the Gyre, November 11, 2009. Retrieved October 27, 2010