Cows That Burp Less

First posted on 06-24-2009

Cattle have long been pointed to as large producers of methane gas and most of their productivity comes from belching. Now, scientists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton are looking at the animal’s genetic code to see if they can alter it to breed a more burpless cow.

Stephen Moore, professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science headed up a team of researchers that conducted tests they say can lead to the breeding of cows that produce 25 percent less methane than their more common cousins.

This is part of an overall effort to make all livestock more efficient consumers of edibles with lower outputs of gas.

According to Moore, those efforts include high-energy diets that are absorbed more quickly by cattle and therefore produce less fermentation in the animal’s stomach. He said it might also result in breeds that grow faster thereby lessening the time needed for grazing and, consequently, burping up all that methane.

Moore and his team have published the results of their study in Journal of Animal Science.