Genetic and environmental variation in methane emissions of sheep at pasture

Title
Genetic and environmental variation in methane emissions of sheep at pasture
Publication Date
2014
Author(s)
Robinson, Dorothy L
Goopy, John P
Vercoe, P E
Hegarty, Roger
Oddy, Hutton
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1783-1049
Email: hoddy2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:hoddy2
Thompson, A N
Toovey, A F
Macleay, CA
Briegal, J R
Woodgate, R T
Donaldson, A J
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
American Society of Animal Science
Place of publication
United States of America
DOI
10.2527/jas.2014-8042
UNE publication id
une:17512
Abstract
A total of 2,600 methane (CH4) and 1,847 CO2 measurements of sheep housed for 1 h in portable accumulation chambers (PAC) were recorded at 5 sites from the Australian Sheep CRC Information Nucleus, which was set up to test leading young industry sires for an extensive range of current and novel production traits. The final validated dataset had 2,455 methane records from 2,279 animals, which were the progeny of 187 sires and 1,653 dams with 7,690 animals in the pedigree file. The protocol involved rounding up animals from pasture into a holding paddock before the first measurement on each day and then measuring in groups of up to 16 sheep over the course of the day. Methane emissions declined linearly (with different slopes for each site) with time since the sheep were drafted into the holding area.
Link
Citation
Journal of Animal Science, 92(10), p. 4349-4363
ISSN
1525-3163
0021-8812
Start page
4349
End page
4363

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