What’s for Dinner?

Abstract

An animal’s nutritional requirements depend on several things: species, mature size, age, weight, physiologic status (pregnancy, lactation, etc.), level of production (rate of gain, amount of milk produced, etc.), general health, weather, and amount of work. For example, every animal will require more energy just for maintenance in cold weather. Also, working animals have higher requirements than animals at rest. Lactating animals have the highest nutritional requirements of all.