Size of Animal in Relation to Productivity Nutritional aspects

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Abstract
With our increased knowledge of genetics and our ability to control breeding populations of farm animals we are now in a position to select for optimum size if we can define it. A consideration of size in relation to nutritional efficiency therefore becomes relevant. (I confine myself to nutritional efficiency since this was my remit, but of course there are many non-nutritional aspects of productivity which also may be related to size, e.g. larger animals need less labour or housing per unit of production; smaller animals may yield more suitable carcasses for some markets, and these may indeed be more important economically than nutritional efficiency.) Nutritional efficiency will be considered in relation to energy use, since energy is normally the limiting nutrient, and the concentration of the other nutrients, proteins, minerals and vitamins can be varied by adding supplements to the diet.