CoachAn animal’s production of matter is the new organic matter it builds: growth of the young (the calf’s added kilograms), yearly renewals (fur molted and regrown, antlers, feathers), repairs (Remark 17.3’s mended bone), and products (milk, eggs, wool). All of it is rebuilt food.
Examples
Example 41.5 (Weighing production)
Farmers weigh production daily: a dairy cow gives some of milk a day — organic matter she must rebuild from feed, day after day; a hen’s egg is some of packed provisions (Remark 8.3), assembled overnight from her grain. No feed, no production: the ledger balances mercilessly.
Example 41.7 (The pyramid, explained at last)
A meadow’s tonnes of grass feed a herd’s worth of rabbits; the rabbits’ kilograms feed a fox or two. At each arrow, most matter is burned for living or lost, and only a fraction is passed upward as body. Great hunters are rare (Proposition 34.5) because they live off the remainders of remainders — arithmetic, not bad luck.