Maintenance requirement refers to nutrients needed to:

• A. Nutrients needed to survive
• B. Nutrients needed for growth
• C. Milk production
• D. Daily feed intake

Answer: (A)

Maintenance requirements are the baseline nutrients an animal needs to keep its body functioning and maintain a constant body weight when it is not growing, lactating, or doing extra work. This is the energy and nutrients required for basic life processes—steady breathing, circulation, digestion, temperature regulation, and the normal turnover and upkeep of body tissues. It’s the foundation level you must meet to keep the animal alive and at a stable weight.

Growth, milk production, and other productive processes require additional nutrients beyond maintenance because they involve creating new tissue or sustaining higher output. Daily feed intake is about how much the animal eats, which must be enough to cover maintenance (and any production needs); maintenance itself describes the minimum biological requirement, not the quantity eaten.