Rapid Communication: Ranking dairy cows for methane emissions measured using respiration chamber or GreenFeed techniques during early, peak, and late lactation1

Abstract

Our objective was to compare the ranking of dairy cows according to their methane (CH) emissions as measured by a respiration chamber (RC) technique and the GreenFeed (GF) technique during 3 periods in second lactation. Two-day CH measurements in a RC performed in wk 3, 14, and 42 of lactation were flanked by GF measurements for 20 (period 1 [P1]), 35 (period 2 [P2]), and 35 (period 3 [P3]) days, respectively, before and after RC measurement. This gave the total duration of CH measurements using the GF system of 40, 70, and 70 d for P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Mean daily CH production (g/d) of the 8 dairy cows was 346, 439, and 430 using the RC technique and 338, 378, and 416 using the GF system during P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Average daily CH production determined by the GF technique was 2.4, 13.8, and 3.2% lower in P1, P2, and P3, respectively. Methane normalized to DMI continuously increased from P1 to P3 when measured in a RC, whereas it was lowest during P2 when measured by the GF method. Ranking of the cows according to CH production, CH/energy-corrected milk yield (ECM; CH/ECM), and CH/DMI differed between periods no matter which method was used. Cluster analysis including all 3 periods, however, identified the same cows with the highest and lowest CH production determined either by the RC technique or the GF system. In conclusion, multiple CH measurements at different stages of lactation are necessary for reliable discrimination of highest and lowest CH emitting cows and the GF system may be used to discriminate the extremes.

Understanding variability and repeatability of enteric methane production in feedlot cattle

“…The between-cow variability enabled the cattle to be individually ranked creating 5 groups that differed significantly in MY. Others have ranked dairy cows according to MY using the GF system (Rischewski et al, 2017;Coppa et al, 2021), but we are unaware of other published studies that report MY rankings of beef cattle. The 36.6% difference in MY between the top and bottom groups substantiates the variation reported by Difford et al (2018) for 750 lactating Holstein dairy cows from commercial herds using infrared gas analyzers installed on automatic milking machines.…”

“…Methane production (MP; g/d) is a function of dry matter (DM) intake (DMI), diet composition, rumen fermentability and the animal's genetics, physiology and microbiome (Beauchemin et al, 2020). Consequently, it varies during the production cycle of the animal (Rischewski et al, 2017;Coppa et al, 2021). Numerous thorough reviews have discussed possible enteric CH 4 mitigation strategies (e.g., Hristov et al, 2013;Beauchemin et al, 2020).…”

“…(Pinares-Patino et al 2011 used respiratory chambers and reported that MY for sheep was a repeatable trait across ages and diets. However, Rischewski et al (2017) concluded that the ranking of dairy cows according to MY was not consistent over a lactation regardless of whether respiratory chambers or GF was used. Similarly, with dairy cows fed a range of diets with CH 4 yield measured over 26 weeks, Coppa et al (2021) reported that the ranking of individual cows as low-emitters using the GF system was not stable over time within a diet.…”

Differences in net fat oxidation, heat production, and liver mitochondrial DNA copy numbers between high and low feed-efficient dairy cows

“…Feed intake depression during the RC period was expected to occur despite the adaptation, due to the nature of cows being housed in individual RC (e.g., social eating, movement in freestalls, ambient temperature). In previous studies involving RC, the typical drop in feed intake is approximately 1 to 2 kg DMI (Alemu et al, 2017;Rischewski et al, 2017). To estimate the drop in intake during the RC period, the expected DMI if cows were in freestalls was estimated by averaging DMI values ±1 wk relative to the RC period for each cow and multiplying this value by 23 h/24 h (estimated DMI/23 h).…”

A Review of Enteric Methane Emission Measurement Techniques in Ruminants

“…Reliable results can be obtained if the timing and times of each animal measurement are well controlled, which is easily achievable by the operation of an investigator in a tie stall barn [ 65 ]. GreenFeed is capable of differentiating the higher emitters from the lower ones in dairy cows and beef heifers as RC [ 39 , 66 ]. Huhtanen et al [ 67 ] reported that CH 4 production measured by GF was significantly correlated with that by RC (R 2 = 0.92) in direct comparisons and also in line with CH 4 emissions calculated by prediction equations developed by RC data.…”