Measuring enteric methane emissions during milking

A research study on quantifying methane emissions among individual dairy cows during milking was published in the Journal of Dairy Science. This work was done by one of the partners in the METHAGENE network, the University of Nottingham.

Enteric methane (CH₄) emissions from ruminants have gained research interest due to the association between greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and global climate change. A large proportion of the variation in enteric CH₄ emissions from animals can be explained by diet composition and feed intake.

A study was conducted aiming to assess repeatability and variation in CH₄ and CO₂ emissions from eructation peaks, average concentrations during milking, and their ratio, by dairy cows fed on diets differing in forage composition. Measurements of CH₄ and CO₂ emissions were collected from 36 cows in 3 consecutive feeding periods. The study showed that quantifying enteric CH₄ emissions either using eructation peaks in concentration, or as CH₄-to-CO₂ ratio, can provide highly repeatable phenotypes for ranking cows on CH₄ output.

Please find a link to the article here