Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires the slightest effort

Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires effort. Mikel M. Delgado, Brandon Sang Gyuc Han & Melissa J. Bain. Animal Cognition, Jul 26 2021. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-021-01530-3

Abstract: Contrafreeloading is the willingness of animals to work for food when equivalent food is freely available. This behavior is observed in laboratory, domesticated, and captive animals. However, previous research found that six laboratory cats failed to contrafreeload. We hypothesized that cats would contrafreeload in the home environment when given a choice between a food puzzle and a tray of similar size and shape. We also hypothesized that more active cats would be more likely to contrafreeload. We assessed the behavior of 17 neutered, indoor domestic cats (Felis catus) when presented with both a food puzzle and a tray across ten 30-min trials. Each cat wore an activity tracker, and all sessions were video recorded. Cats ate more food from the free feed tray than the puzzle (t (16) = 6.77, p < 0.001). Cats made more first choices to approach and eat from the tray. There was no relationship between activity and contrafreeloading, and there was no effect of sex, age, or previous food puzzle experience on contrafreeloading. Our results suggest that cats do not show strong tendencies to contrafreeload in the home environment, although some cats (N = 4) ate most food offered in the puzzle or showed weak contrafreeloading tendencies (N = 5). Eight cats did not contrafreeload. Cats who consumed more food from the puzzle, consumed more food in general, suggesting a relationship between hunger and effort. Further research is required to understand why domestic cats, unlike other tested species, do not show a strong preference to work for food.

Discussion

In this study, we tested for the first time whether domestic cats living in homes would contrafreeload, as has been demonstrated in several captive and domesticated species. We did not find strong evidence for contrafreeloading; instead, cats preferred to eat the food that was freely available with no required additional effort. This was true when looking at both the overall population of cats, and the behavior of individual cats across trials.

We were unable to identify specific individual traits (sex, age and previous experience with a food puzzle) that predicted whether cats would contrafreeload. The four cats who appeared to be contrafreeloaders had one trait in common; they ate most of the food available to them during trials. In fact, the strongest predictor of amount of food eaten from the puzzle was the amount of food eaten from the tray.

The unanswered question is why cats, among multiple species tested, appear to be the only one that does not reliably contrafreeload. This tendency appears to contradict the fact that cats naturally work for food by hunting and will stop eating to hunt additional prey (Adamec 1976; Leyhausen 1979). Some differences in contrafreeloading tendencies among species have been attributed to domestication, such as in one study where white leghorn layers contrafreeloaded less than their ancestral species, jungle fowl (Jensen et al. 2002). Possible explanations included selection for allocation of resources toward reproduction and individual growth, and less need for information gathering when food sources are stable.

The cats in our study were all spayed or neutered and housed indoors only, which might have impacted their behavior. Spaying and neutering decreases the metabolic rate (Fettman et al. 1997) and the physical activity of female cats (Belsito et al. 2009), while simultaneously increasing cats’ food intake (Alexander et al. 2011; Wei et al. 2014). However, the previous study that failed to find evidence of contrafreeloading in cats only included reproductively intact cats (Koffer and Coulson 1971). To date, no studies have directly compared the activity patterns of indoor cats with those who have outdoor access. Thus, it would be premature to predict different results from reproductively intact or outdoor cats.

We also found no relationship between activity and contrafreeloading behavior. This result supports a previous study that found no change in activity level after introducing food puzzles to cats (Naik et al. 2018). Another study found that when two laboratory cats were required to offer an increasing number of touches to a switchplate in exchange for free access to food, they decreased the number of meals per day, and consumed more food at each feeding period (Collier et al. 1997). Studies of free-roaming feral cats suggest they spend almost 90% of their time inactive, with < 1% of their time spent hunting (Hernandez et al. 2018). In general, cats appear to conserve energy to the greatest extent possible, minimizing the amount of time and effort required to meet their caloric requirements, whether by hunting or engaging with enrichment devices in homes.

Our conclusion that cats prefer freely available food over that which requires effort is limited by some aspects of our study, such as a relatively small sample size. It is possible that the appearance of the food puzzle hindered consumption, as food was more visible in the tray. However, the cover of the puzzle was translucent, and several of the compartments face upward, such that the food would be visible from above. Although the novelty or shape of the food puzzle could have been a deterrent to the cats, we controlled for this by presenting all cats with a novel tray of the same shape and size simultaneously. All cats ate from both the puzzle and the tray during the training period, so we do not believe that appearance, novelty, or aversion to the device itself can explain the failure to contrafreeload.

We also did not control for food intake or hunger, as we did not want to increase the stress levels of cats, who can be sensitive to changes in feeding regimens (Stella et al. 2011). Food restriction can also reduce contrafreeloading (Inglis et al. 1997), so we did not want food withheld from cats longer than they were accustomed to. Since the cats ate a large percentage of the freely available food during trials, we cannot blame the failure to contrafreeload on a lack of interest in food. However, as we only gave cats access to the tray and puzzle for 30 min per trial, it is possible that cats would have engaged more with the puzzle if it continued to be available throughout the day.

Interpretation of our results may be dependent on how contrafreeloading is defined. Sometimes contrafreeloading is defined as when an animal will work for any food in the presence of freely available food, whereas some consider it a preference to work for food (Inglis et al., Osborne et al.). Most cats in our study did eat some food from the puzzle but none ate more food from the puzzle than the tray. Thus, although we have evidence for some willingness to work for food when freely available food is present (weak contrafreeloading), there is no evidence that cats preferred to work for food.

Of the species who have been tested for contrafreeloading, few predatory species (chimps, humans, and cats) are included, and most species tested are foragers who use extended search to acquire food (e.g., pigeons, rats, gerbils, Inglis et al. 1997). Sit-and-wait predation is considered low cost and is a common hunting style among felids (Williams et al. 2014). A full discussion of predatory energetics is beyond the scope of this manuscript, but contrafreeloading, which provides information about the quality of food patches, is expected to be weaker in species that do not engage in prolonged search (Inglis et al. 1997). Future studies should investigate whether foraging style is an important factor in contrafreeloading tendencies, and whether energy conservation is influential.

Like other studies, we did not find a statistically significant effect of sex on contrafreeloading (Lindqvist and Jensen 2008; Vasconcellos et al. 2012). However, in the current study, the four cats who did show a tendency to contrafreeload were all males, and the two cats who did not eat any food from the puzzle were both females. Male cats are more prone to obesity (Lund et al. 2005) and may be more food motivated in general. Our findings suggest the sex of the cat should be considered in future studies.

Future research can further explore contrafreeloading in cats by introducing different types of food puzzles or operant behaviors necessary for obtaining food. Changing the value of the food offered may also increase contrafreeloading, as novelty of food items increases the level of reinforcement (Inglis et al. 1997). The effects of foraging enrichment on cat welfare and health indicators should also be assessed. A presentation of case studies found positive effects of food puzzles for domestic cats, such as weight reduction and an improvement of behavioral health (Dantas et al. 2016), but puzzles do not appear to increase overall activity levels (Naik et al. 2018).

Understanding contrafreeloading is important for captive and domestic animal welfare as foraging enrichment is a frequently used tool to provide choice and mental stimulation. The effects of such enrichment on the behavior of captive animals are rarely tested. For domestic cats, the provision of foraging enrichment may depend on the needs and food motivation of the individual animal, and may be best introduced as a choice to enhance welfare, as foraging enrichment has been suggested to do in other species (e.g., Tarou and Bashaw 2007).