Growth functions and their application in animal science

Brief consideration is given to some simple growth functions commonly applied in animal science and other fields of biology, namely the exponential (with abrupt cut-off), monomolecular, logistic and Gompertz. Consideration is then given to two nested growth functions, the Richards and a new function which takes the form of a generalised Mitscherlich equation and is capable of describing both diminishing returns and sigmoidal patterns of growth. The two functions are compared using sets of growth data on cows, goats, pigs, dogs and geese.