Name/Value array to table row

I have an array that is a name value pair where the name is the name of a
column in a table. There are about 300 columns. I want to use all of the
name value pairs to construct the table row. I've thought about using jsonb
or hstore. I'm sure I could write some ugly code to do this, but what is
the BEST way to go about this?
I.E
ARRAY
name |value
-----------
animal | 'cat'
lbs | 20

create table animals (animal text, lbs number);
thanks,
Mike