Applied Animal Nutrition-I

Equalized paired feeding or paired feeding

EQUALIZED PAIRED/PAIRED FEEDING

• In paired feeding, the feed intakes are completely controlled.
• In this method of comparing two rations, the animals are fed alike in a preliminary period.
• Then animals are selected by pairs and are kept on ration A and ration B and are fed same quantity of feed limiting the intakes of both to that of the animal consuming the lesser amount.
• The two animals of the pair are similar in size, age and previous history.
• But such equalities are not essential from pair to pair.
• The equalization of feed intake is also limited to with in the pair.
• Minimum of four pairs of animals are to be used to carry out statistical analysis.
• In a experiment in which the two rations under comparison were alike with the exception of the phosphorus carrier,both the rations contained same amount of phosphorus  and in the same ratio to calcium. It is noted that for a given pair of rats the food intakes were substantially alike over the experimental period of 35 days.
• When it is desired to compare three rations at the same time, the animals can be selected in trios.

Advantages

• Properly conducted equalized feeding experiments have a distinct advantage over ad libitum method as regards to the adaptability of the results to statistical treatment.
• Other things being equal, the larger the number of pairs or trios, the greater is the reliability of the results.

Disadvantages

• The faster-growing animal is penalized because of restricted feeding.
• As the animal on the superior ration increases in weight over its mate, its maintenance requirement becomes greater than that of its mate.
• Under these conditions, an equal feed intake for both means, that the larger animal must be using a larger proportion for maintenance and less remains for growth promotion.
• The frequent effect of a nutritionally deficient ration is to decrease feed consumption.
• By limiting feed intake, the full effect of the better ration cannot express itself.
• The method is not suitable for finding out how much superior one ration is to another for growth.