Wild feline feed: apparent digestibility and urinary ph evaluation in domestic cats (felis catus)

The digestibility of nutrients in commercial diets of domestic cats are well characterized and documented, however, for felids it does not occur. Even the research shows the digestibility of raw food for wild cats are limited. Therefore, this work aims to evaluate the digestibility, urinary pH, fecal score and weight maintenance of domestic cats fed an extruded wild cat food. Six domestic cats were used, without defined breed, with an average age of 6.3 years, being four females and two males. The experiment and urinary pH evaluation were performed at the Cattery of the Experimental Farm of Iguatemi, belonging to the State University of Maringá, Paraná. The evaluation of feces to determine apparent digestibility was performed at the Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, at the State University of Londrina, Paraná. All variables found were submitted to descriptive analysis of variance and means compared to Tukey's test. The statistical models were performed using the RStudio software, with a significance level of 0.05. The feed presented satisfactory results regarding weight maintenance, urinary pH and digestibility index in domestic cats.