Given the choice of the smell of methane in a cows burp or a kiss from my dog after he’s eaten a sun dried fish carcass scavenged from the beach, I’d pick the burp hands down.

Nowadays though there’s a growing awareness of the impact of greenhouse gases on our planet.Specifically in helping it to warm up.

So why is methane considered a ‘greenhouse’ gas and oxygen isn’t?

It’s all to do with the way the infra red part of the sun’s rays makes a methane molecule vibrate.

Like lots of little invisible dancing pyramids of energy.

The effect is that less infra red radiation gets to escape the earths atmosphere. And more stays around to warm up the planet.

Cows are not the only producers of methane though. In fact much of it is produced and wasted by the oil and gas industry.

Where does the methane in a cows burp come from anyway?

The fibre fermenting bacteria are responsible for the majority of the methane produced in the rumen. They are the heroes that can do something with the cellulose in the wall of a plant cell. It’s a process that we are incapable of doing ourselves.

If starch is like a loose spiral spring of glucose units, cellulose is a tight linear chain of the same sugars but linked in a different way. And the cow needs a different ‘tribe’ with their own unique tools or enzymes to break it up.

The byproducts are different too. For cellulose they are acetate which is a short chained 2 carbon fatty acid, and methane which is one carbon.

Acetate then ends up eventually in the udder as milk fat.

Unfortunately this is not an efficient process, and up to 11% of dry matter intake D.M.I can be lost as CH4 or methane. It costs you money.

So what are the solutions?

• change her diet e.g. by adding polyunsaturated fatty acids, sunflower, canola or flax seeds
• or manipulate the tribes e.g. with ionophores like monensin or garlic oils
• or both

 

Whatever the solution its important to DO NO HARM. To the overall digestibility of the cows diet or to her milk fat % or to her health and your pocket.