PHYSIOLOGICAL AND METABOLIC SYSTEMS IMPORTANT TO ANIMAL GROWTH: AN OVERVIEW

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Abstract
Improvement in the efficiency of production of human food by animals is a principal goal of animal scientists. The purpose of this overview of animal growth is to describe the physiological and metabolic systems that are important to growth of meat-producing animals. Voluntary consumption of feed, digestibility, fermentation losses in the gastrointestinal tract, yields of volatile fatty acids and of microbial cells in the rumina of ruminant animals and specific metabolic actions on absorbed nutrients by the liver are major factors that influence the amount and type of nutrients presented to bone, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue for growth. Gastrointestinal and other hormones and blood flow to growing tissues also regulate types and amounts of nutrients available for growth. The capacity of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue to increase in size is determined by the number of muscle or fat cells available for protein and triglyceride accretion, respectively. When hyperplasia ceases or occurs at negligible rates, then growth occurs by hypertrophy, which is manifested as accretion of protein and triglyceride. Therefore, increases in absorption of nutrients per animals or per unit of feed and increases in deposition of a greater fraction of the absorbed nutrients seem possible and would increase the efficiency of production of human food from feeds by meat-producing animals.

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