AgResearch’s Cool Science: Episode 2…

AgResearch Cool Science

We asked some cool kids to tell us about our Cool Science and the results are in!
Episode 2: Lower Methane Sheep – are AgResearch scientists really collecting sheep burps and farts?

To find out more about the science and scientists behind AgResearch’s Cool Science, read on:

Reducing Methane

Breeding for lowered environmental impact in sheep Methane from livestock is responsible for ~33% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. As part of international agreements, New Zealand is committed to significantly cutting these emissions. Methane is a waste product from fermentation of forage and is also an energy loss to the animal. We have shown, using sheep bred for high and low methane over two generations, that the amount of methane a sheep loses during digestion is partly controlled by genetics. A five year programme has been dedicated to measuring whether breeding for low methane, is likely to affect reproduction, productivity and health.

Preliminary results show that we can safely breed for low methane; in fact the low methane line appears to have a higher dual purpose performance index than the high line. While most traits are unaffected, there is evidence that low emitting animals are leaner and grow more wool. This is likely to be due to changes in rumen fermentation causing changes in energy sources and amino acids available to the animal.

AgResearch has developed portable accumulation (PAC) chambers for short term measures of gas emissions. These total emissions may also be informative for the metabolic rate of the sheep and may be directly related to feed intake. Next steps are to evaluate the methane selection lines for feed efficiency and ultimately to measure enough sheep to ensure that breeders can get accurate breeding values for methane emission.

For more, read Stuff’s article on the work around Lower Methane Sheep.