WINNIPEG – Those belching cows out in the pasture are doing more than upsetting environmentalists worried about methane as a greenhouse gas.
They’re costing their owners money.
When a ruminant’s digestive tract produces methane gas, it’s using energy that would otherwise have been used to make protein, either in the form of weight gain or milk production, said University of Manitoba livestock nutritionist Karin Wittenberg.
She’s working with Agriculture Canada forage scientist Paul McCaughey to determine just how much methane is produced in pastured cattle and how different feeding programs could channel that energy into improved productivity.
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The methane produced by cattle worldwide is believed responsible for 2.25 percent of the gases causing global warming.
But Wittenberg said the data on methane production in cows is based on measurements taken from animals in an enclosed room where their movement is confined. Until recently there has been no method for collecting such data when the animals are moving in a natural pasture environment.
The research team is trying a new technique for measuring methane production in cattle that was developed by U.S. researchers. Cows are fitted with a tube in their rumen containing an easily measured tracer gas, sulphur hexafloride.
Researchers are able to measure how much of the tracer gas is released through the animal’s mouth and nostrils as it grazes, and from that, they are able to gauge the volume of methane released simultaneously.
The U.S. experiment for which the technique was developed is now stalled because cattle producers refused to co-operate – believing the results could be used against their industry by environmental lobbyists.
“From our perspective, we view it as a tool that could be very useful,” Wittenberg said.
Accurate data collected in field conditions may not only help disprove false claims against the industry, it could put more dollars in farmers’ pockets.
Wittenberg said the three-year study, now in its first year, will examine what role pasture management practices, feed blends and feed conversion supplements play in reducing the methane and increasing the meat.
