Table 3. Means and standard deviations for pre- and post-hibernation body mass, fat mass and fat-free mass of the experimental animal groups, according to the time of birth (early-born ‘EB’, late-born ‘LB’) and feeding treatment (ad libitum ‘AL’ and intermittently fasted ‘IF’).

Groups differing significantly (p<0.05, Tukey’s post-hoc comparisons) are denoted by different superscripts.

Variable	Time	Group	Mean ± SD
Body mass (g)	Pre-hibernation Post-hibernation	EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF	100.0 ± 0.7a 101.8 ± 2.1a 77.4 ± 1.3b 77.3 ± 2.1b 65.7 ± 0.4c 63.7 ± 1.0c 59.3 ± 0.6c 60.5 ± 1.7c
Fat mass (g)	Pre-hibernation Post-hibernation	EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF	47.5 ± 0.6a 49.2 ± 1.4a 32.6 ± 1.0b 32.3 ± 1.3b 18.5 ± 0.2c 18.0 ± 0.7c 15.5 ± 0.4c 17.6 ± 0.9c
Fat-free mass (g)	Pre-hibernation Post-hibernation	EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF EB-AL EB-IF LB-AL LB-IF	52.5 ± 0.4a 52.6 ± 0.7a 44.8 ± 0.5bc 44.9 ± 0.9bc 47.2 ± 0.5bc 45.7 ± 0.4c 43.9 ± 0.5c 43.0 ± 4.3c