This episode featured as part of the Livestock and Genetics segment in partnership with Carrfields Livestock.

Feed-efficiency testing at Te Mania Angus has exposed wide variation in how much cattle eat for the same growth. Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s announced their Cool Beef programme this week, funded by the Ag Emissions Centre, which uses portable accumulation chambers to take methane, CO2 and oxygen readings.

Te Mania’s general manager and co-director Will Wilding says the programme is part of a wider international project looking at genetic tools as a way of reducing methane emissions in beef cattle.

The feed units read each animal’s EID tag as it eats silage and weigh it at the water trough, giving feed-conversion figures that correlate with emissions.

“There was a third of them that were eating nearly 20% more, and then a third that were eating nearly 20% less than the average,” he says.

This episode featured as part of the Livestock and Genetics segment in partnership with Carrfields Livestock. To learn more about buying, selling or managing livestock, or to connect with a local livestock specialist, visit carrfieldslivestock.co.nz 

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.