Palatability assessment of prescribed diets on domestic shorthair cats

Vet World Vol.15 March-2022 Article-13

Research Article

Veterinary World, 15(3): 640-646

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2022.640-646

Nazhan Ilias¹, Ahmad Harris Hakim Zaki¹, Awang Hazmi Awang Junaidi¹, Lau Seng Fong², Ikhwan Saufi³, and Mokrish Ajat¹

1. Department of Veterinary Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Malaysia.
2. Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Malaysia.
3. University Veterinary Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Malaysia.

Background and Aim: The value of the pet food industry, which is majorly the prescribed diet, exponentially increased over the years due to increased awareness among pet owners to provide a healthy lifestyle for their pets. However, several factors such as aroma, flavor, texture, and shape of prescribed diets greatly influenced the palatability in cats. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the palatability of the prescribed diet for domestic shorthair (DSH) cats.

Materials and Methods: The two-bowl method was employed to determine the palatability of prescribed diets on five DSH cats for 6 days. Furthermore, the four types of prescribed diet assessed in this study were struvite, renal, hypersensitivity, and intestinal. Furthermore, the pet food palatability was analyzed using “First Approached,” “First Consumed,” “Total Consumption,” and “Intake ratios.”

Results: Our findings revealed that “Total Consumption” and “Intake Ratios” were significantly different in struvite, renal, and intestinal diets compared to the hypersensitivity diet. In addition, this result indicates that the hypersensitivity diet is the most unpalatable compared with other diets.

Conclusion: A detailed investigation of the diet ingredients showed that a hypersensitivity diet lacks herbs and spices than the other diets. Therefore, these ingredients lacking in the hypersensitivity diet influence the palatability of pet foods. Keywords: aroma, domestic shorthair cats, flavor, palatability, prescribed diet.

Keywords: aroma, domestic shorthair cats, flavor, palatability, prescribed diet.

How to cite this article: Ilias N, Zaki AHH, Junaidi AHA, Fong LS, Saufi I, Ajat M (2022) Palatability assessment of prescribed diets on domestic shorthair cats, Veterinary World, 15(3): 640-646.

Received: 26-08-2021 Accepted: 08-02-2022 Published online: 23-03-2022

Corresponding author: Mokrish Ajat E-mail: mokrish@upm.edu.my

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2022.640-646

Copyright: Ilias, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.