Download Effect of Ruminal Acidosis, Dietary Manipulation, and Residual Feed Intake on Methane Emission in Lactating Dairy Cows Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This thesis comprises three experiments that aimed to study effect of ruminal acidosis, dietary manipulation, and residual feed intake on methane (CH4) emission in lactation dairy cows. The first experiment investigated the impact of subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA) challenge feeding on enteric CH4 emission from lactating dairy cows fed diets differing in forage level, thus to determine the potential of using enteric CH4 measurement as a non-invasive approach to identify cows with SARA. Results showed that daily mean ruminal pH was mostly affected by dry matter intake as well as concentrate feeding. However, weak negative correlation was found between ruminal pH and CH4 emission rate. Therefore, measuring CH4 emission from breath of the cows alone is not an effective, non-invasive SARA detection method. The second experiment evaluated the effects of readily rumen-available carbohydrate source (refined starch vs. dextrose) and its interaction with level of rumen degradable protein (RDP) on lactation performance, ruminal parameters, CH4 emission, nutrient digestibility, and N balance in lactating dairy cows. Results indicated that dietary treatments did not affect CH4 emission intensity (CH4 emission per unit of dry matter intake, or milk production), but daily CH4 emission was 7.0% lower for cows fed a diet of 28.1% starch and 4.6% water-soluble carbohydrate compared with diets of lower starch and higher water-soluble carbohydrate contents. Reducing the level of RDP from 11% to 9% in iso-nitrogenous diets resulted in more milk yield, had no effect on nutrient apparent total tract digestibility, manure excretion and composition, N balance, and CH4 emission. The third experiment studied if genotypic RFI was reliable to reflect feed conversion efficiency, and if differences in RFI may be explained in part by differences in CH4 emission, general behavior (including standing vs. laying down), feeding behavior (including meal frequency and pattern) and chewing behavior (including eating, chewing and rumination activity). These measurement were conducted for cows consuming dietary forage neutral detergent fiber (FNDF) content of 19.4 and 28.1% (diet DM basis). Results indicated that low-RFI cows tended to maintained higher feed efficiency regardless of dietary FNDF content. Most measured behavior responses were influenced by dietary FNDF content but none of them was influenced by cow RFI or dietary FNDF by cow RFI interaction. Results indicated that differences in RFI may not be explained by CH4 emission, feeding, or chewing behavior. Results from the experiments suggested that ruminal pH may have a lag effect on CH4 emission, cows fed a diet of 28.1% starch and 4.6% water-soluble carbohydrate emitted 7.0% less daily CH4 compared with cows fed diets of lower starch and higher water-soluble carbohydrate contents. Reducing the level of RDP from 11% to 9% in iso-nitrogenous diets had no effect on CH4 emission. In addition, difference in animal RFI did not result in difference in CH4 emission.