feeding

n.

1. the act of eating, or of supplying with food; the process of fattening.

2. That which is eaten; food.

3. That which furnishes or affords food, especially for animals; pasture land.

Feeding bottle. See under Bottle.

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The taking or giving of food.

• animal f. unit — (AFO) see AFO/CAFO.
• artificial f. — feeding of a neonate with food other than its dam's milk.
• f. behavior — difficulty in prehension, quidding, regurgitation through the nostrils, coughing and aspiration are all abnormalities of feeding behavior of clinical importance.
• challenge f. — animals are fed more feed than their present production or growth justifies in an attempt to elicit higher production still.
• enteral f. — see enteral feeding.
• force f. — administration of food by force to animals who cannot or will not receive it, e.g. anorexic animals or weak neonates.
• intravenous f. — administration of nutrient fluids through a vein. See also intravenous infusion.
• lead f. — see challenge feeding (above).
• limit f. — occurs where grower finisher pigs are fed a specific amount of food in a specific time period versus free access to feed. Limit feeding is common in Europe but not in the United States, except for gestating sows.
• f. module — a concentrated source of one type of nutrient, e.g. carbohydrate, fat or protein.
• orphan f. — diets for newborn animals which have lost their dams; milk replacers.
• f. pattern — 1. the procedure adopted by an animal while eating a meal. May consist of eating concentrates before roughage. Includes nibbling, gorging and sham feeding. See also feeding behavior (above).
— 2. the program of feeding adopted by the animal's custodian. Includes single, large meals, frequent, small snacks.
• pellet f. — the ration is converted into pellets, logs or bricks. Has the advantage of reducing wastage and facilitating feeding especially with automatic feeders. There is the additional cost of manufacturing.
• restricted f. — used in times of shortage, e.g. during a drought or as a management tool to modify the carcass, especially its fat content, or the milk yield at drying off. Restraint in feeding for animals that receive only stored feeds is simple. There are difficulties in animals that are at pasture or in feedlots on self-feeders. For pastured animals strip grazing is the accepted strategy. In feedlots it is customary to add a feed-aversion agent such as salt or flowers of sulfur to grain ration.
• silo f. — feed stored in a silo is augered out to surrounding troughs. May be grain or ensilage.
• f. trial — assessment of the performance of a particular feed, determined by any of several parameters, e.g. body weight (loss or gain), digestibility, growth rate, palatability, of the feed being fed over a set period of time.
• tube f. — feeding of liquids and semisolid foods through an esophageal or gastric tube.

IN BRIEF: n. - The act of consuming food; The act of supplying food and nourishment.

Spoon-feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. — E.M. Forster

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the act of consuming food
  Synonym: eating

Meaning #2: the act of supplying food and nourishment
  Synonym: alimentation

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Feeding Tubes	friendly feeding
feeding frenzy	Breastmilk Storage & Feeding Set