Methane Meadows
Methane is considered one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases for the environment and methane in the atmosphere is a serious matter. However it puzzles me that environmentalist (especially vegans and vegetarians) point to the ranching industry as a major contributor to climate change. Yes, I’m talking about cattle farts.
Have you ever driven passed an oil patch and seen methane flares being burnt off? They are usually loud and extremely bright at night. Before the Eagle Ford shale oil patch came into existence, that area was one of the darkest night skies in Texas. After the patch began operation, it became one of the brightest areas of the state, rivaling the night lights of Houston.
Texas oil and gas production is vital to our economy, but no cow herd or confinement animal feeding operation (CAFO) can rival the spewing of methane from these wells. I regularly write my elected officials and protest the burning off of “excessive methane”. When I worked for Schlumberger Well Service in Houston (1974-1979), I learned from the engineers there that there was enough natural gas off the Louisiana coast to power all of America’s electric needs until the year 2025. We need to use that gas, not burn it off without producing energy.
But back to cattle farts, I confess that I have been on the receiving end of a few. The worse came when I was learning to palpate a cow while a student at Texas A&M. The smell was overpowering and the other students and I retreated to a safe distance while the smell subsided. Thank goodness it was just the gas. Cow farts are short, not so loud and some stink while others don’t. It really depends on what the cow has eaten. Methane really has no smell. It is the other additives that stink.
In all my years of working cattle on our ranch and on client’s ranches, I have never experienced a volley and volume of farts that could equal a few seconds of gas expelled by one of those oil field methane burners. I have even seen more methane bubbling naturally out of a swamp where I was frog gigging. My gigging buddies would light the bubbles to prove that it was natural gas (swamp gas). And no, those were not alligator farts.
Cow farts, as I have seen, come from cows with slightly distressed digestive systems. Cows often get gas when their diets change from being fed with winter pastures and hay to lush green spring pastures. Or as I have witnessed, cattle get gas when put on feed and grain after grazing on green pastures. Anytime there is a major change in an animal’s diet, it gets gas.
In my experience, pastures with a few weeds seem to have cattle with fewer farts. Which weeds keep the cow farts from coming as often is still a mystery to me. I know from my family ranch that cattle that eat from pastures with epazote seem to have fewer digestive problems. Other weeds in those pastures may also help. For the record, cattle in chemically fertilized bermuda pastures without many weeds or other grasses seem to fart more often.
In her first book, Defending Beef, Nicolette Hahn Niman, explains that there is little correlation between methane levels and the number of ruminants in the world. She also points out that more methane is burped and breathed out than farted out. Nicolette was an environmental lawyer and vegetarian turned cattle rancher. Her second book also titled Defending Beef, The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat is a good read for any rancher or beef eater.
In her first book, Nicolette put a lot of blame on the CAFO operations. Feeding pens are a terrible place for cattle. The cattle stand in manure and urine all day, cramped into small lots with hundreds of other animals. They are fed two to four times a day of rations that are not anything like the grassy fields they came from. The smell is awful.
Chicken CAFO’s are no better. There is one big barnlike area off interstate 10 at mile marker 643 that announces itself to your nose a half mile before you get there. And the flies are so bad that stopping for a moment alongside the highway will make a white truck look leopard-spotted. It’s not all methane gas that causes the smell, ammonia is also a stinker.
Without a doubt, methane in cattle is reduced when cattle are regularly rotated from meadow to meadow of wellmanaged, mineralized grasses and herbs. Adding mineral salt (sea salt, not sodium chloride) to the animal’s diet also helps reduce methane production while adding minerals to the meadow.
Research shows that adding seaweed nutrients to the confined animal’s diet also significantly reduces cattle methane production. Seaweed nutrients can be sprayed on hay or feed, or given as a dry supplement in feed. Research too shows that having dung beetles in the pasture reduces methane production. This is probably due to the better microbial action in the soil providing more nutrients to the plant, but there could be other reasons as well Cattle have been fed grains for centuries since becoming domesticated. I am pretty sure that my German relatives kept cattle in confined barns through the winter. Grains were fed as well as hay. Did the cattle fart?You can bet they did. Was it a cause for alarm? No. Perhaps it is because farts are a natural occurrence.
Cattle raisers today have a choice. They can add to the methane problem or choose to reduce the problem by managing pastures in a more natural manner. Eliminating chemical fertilizers is a great way to start. Not only will it reduce the methane problem, it will improve pastures and the health of the animals grazing those pastures.
Natural fertilizers provide the nutrients the grasses need, and they improve the soil. With the high prices of fertilizers, why would anyone want to put down a chemical fertilizer when organic fertilizers cost the same or less and give better results? Making these changes means less methane, healthier cattle, and better beef.
David E. Will is a Schulenburg farmer, rancher, nurseryman, landscaper, and consultant. He can be reached at 830-629-9876 or by email at dwill207@satx.rr.com.