Assessment of interrelationships among levels of intake and production, organ size and fasting heat production in growing animals.

Although the concept of metabolic body size (kg0.75) has gained widespread use in the field of energy metabolism, its application to the growing animal has been questioned. Fasting heat production, or maintenance, rather than being a constant function of body size, has been shown to vary because of breed, sex, condition, physiological state, production level, nutrition level and environmental conditions. Data are presented to show that fasting heat production and maintenance vary with nutritional level or rate of growth in animals postweaning. Variation in these energy expenditures are related to variation in weight of metabolically active internal organs. Weights of liver and gut and fasting heat production are shown to be functions of body size and level of production. More information is needed to ascertain the primary components of energy expenditures in animals and to quantitatively relate these components to animal energy metabolism.