Free Feeding

The Free Feeding program configures FED4 to automatically dispense pellets on a timed interval without requiring any nose pokes. This allows animals to consume food freely, while FED4 logs pellet removal timestamps. Fun fact: This was the ONLY task the original FED ran!

What can this task measure?

The total number of pellets taken can be converted to calories to estimate the total amount eaten each day. Keep in mind that animals don't necessarily eat every pellet they take. They can drop the pellets on the floor, resulting in left over pellets at the end of the session. This should be taken into account when estimating total food consumption. See Barrett et al to learn more about this behavior.

In addition to the total intake, the pattern of pellets removed can be used to determine day/night feeding, circadian feeding, and meal size, meal duration, and rate of eating within meals.

Task Code

#include <FED4.h>               // include the FED4 library

FED4 fed4;                      // start FED4 object

void setup() {
  fed4.begin();                 // initialize FED4 hardware
}

void loop() {
  fed4.run();                   // run this once per loop
  fed4.feed();                  // feed one pellet
}

Example Data

Example data from the Free feeding task on FED4 is here

Analysis notebook

This notebook provides an analysis workflow for this task.