This is a very random question which may have a very obvious answer but...

Recently due to my OH working night shifts I (we) have become nocturnal, sleeping til late afternoon and being up all night til 9am. Obviously there are animals in the wild that do this naturally. Owls....chinchillas etc.

My question is: If a nocturnal animal was raised as a pet in a normal human environment, can it be taught to be un-nocturnal?

I could google this... but it'd be so much more interesting to hear what you have to say

I reckon some animals could, but not cats as kimberley says it's just 'in them' to keep us up all night!

I think you can manage a cat's routine a little so that it adapts to our lifestyle by feeding them at certain times, playing at certain times etc but I don't think you can change the basic instinct. Cats are actually crepuscular rather than truly nocturnal so their natural habit is to be most active at dawn and dusk with some down time in between.

Mine have 24 hour access to outdoors and they tend to disappear late evening (9pm-ish at the moment), come back inside to sleep for the middle of the night and then disappear again in the early morning (about 4am), they then return at my breakfast time and crash out for most of the day.

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wow ginny, "crepuscular" awesome word! Learn something new every day

I only learnt it a few months ago when I was looking into cat's habits. I hadn't realised there was anything other than nocturnal or diurnal but it's right that cats aren't usually active all night (unless it's very light).

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I hadn't thought about it that way either, but now you've said it, it makes more sense!

Kara and Khan both sleep soundly all night - neither of them move unless Khan is mooching for a sleepy ear suck . Taz my moggs prowls outside every night thru the summer (sleeps all day!) and sleeps (snores!!) all night thru the winter..

Gucci also sleeps ALL night. like a baby... infact she's in bed before i am and doesnt get up until i do!

Hey,

an animal's normal sleep pattern is related to different neurochemicals released at different times of the day according to an internal body clock. In addition mammals have a gland which produces melatonin when it's dark, which makes diurnal animals sleepy and nocturnal animals active.

Basically you can change light conditions to trick animals into being active at different times of the day (for example in zoos they have soft night lighting so nocturnal animals are awake during visitor hours then bright lamps are turned on at night to encourage them to sleep when there are no visitors) as it changes their body clock. If you don't do that you're making an animal fight its natural sleep cycle and in the long term it causes a lot of stress on their systems. The best example is a hamster, a little nocturnal pet that gets given to kids who want to play with it all day long. This actually halves their lifespan in comparison to those who are allowed to sleep all day.

But although most cats have times at which they're more active, the fact that they are able to nap a lot throughout the day (polyphasic sleep) means they're a lot more adaptable to different sleep situations.

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