Merits and Limitations

MERITS AND LIMITATIONS

Merits: 

  • To express the energy value of feedstuff Kellner used starch, which is well known by the farmers. So the farmers easily understand it. 
  • In many European countries this system was once very popular and even now used in some.
  • It is a productive type system, which considers all the energy losses including faecal, urinary, gaseous and heat losses.

Limitations:

The starch equivalent system suffers from the same weaknesses as other net energy systems namely,

  • The starch value of the ration is not constant at different levels of feeding, but decreases with increasing levels.
  • The starch value differs considerably for different productive purposes, even at the same level of feeding.
  • Kellner expressed energy values for feedstuffs and requirements for all functions in starch equivalents for fattening. For fattening the efficiency is lower than for other functions like growth, lactation, etc.

Position of SE in energy evaluation:

  • As the SE considered all the energy losses from the body and only the useful energy is stored as fat, this system can be fit into the NE system.
Last modified: Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 8:44 AM