Regurgitation and choke in rats

Male and female F344 rats choked on fecal pellets and regurgitant during the course of two long-term experiments. Each study involved feeding standard and high bulk diets containing 10% wood cellulose or 10% chrysotile asbestos fiber. Choke deaths occurred at all stages of the experiments. A total of 36 of 774 (4.6%) rats in the two studies died of choke. Females died of choke more frequently (26/382 or 6.8%) than did males (10/392 or 2.6%). Rats on high bulk diets were affected more frequently (33/571 or 5.8%), especially those on 10% asbestos diet (26/311 or 8.4%, than rats consuming standard diet (3/190 or 1.6%). The reason for the difference between females and males was not determined. Although choke may be related to some characteristics of high nonnutritive bulk feed fed in pellet form, the higher risk for females even on standard diet (3/95 or 3.2%) than for males (0/95) indicated that more than one factor operated in the etiology of these events.