A meal was considered when the bouts were larger than 10 s into the feeder, and these meals were separated from other feeding bouts by more than 10 min of inter-meal interval46, 47. Except for the first meal, when a bout was longer than 30 min, two meals were considered. The meal patterns calculated included the following: duration of the first meal (in min), frequency of meals (in number of meals in 12 h), cumulative eating time as the total time spent in the feeder (in min), duration of inter-meal intervals (in min), and number of meal intervals. The inter-meal interval was calculated as the time period between the end of one meal and the initiation of the next one. The mean meal size was determined as the total food intake (g) divided by frequency. The mean meal duration was calculated by dividing the total meal duration (in min) by meal frequency, and the eating rate was estimated dividing total food intake (mg) by meal duration (min).