Cows That Burp Less Methane to Be Bred

Canadian scientists are breeding a type of cow that burps less, in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gases. Cows are responsible for almost 75% of total methane emissions, mostly coming from burps. Stephen Moore, professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science at the University of Alberta, hopes the refined bovines will produce 25 per cent less methane. Nancy Hirshberg, spokesman for Stonyfield Farm says, "If every US dairy farmer reduced emissions by 12 per cent it would be equal to about half a million cars being taken off the road."

Comments

More cowbell

[davidwr]

More cowbell, less cow-burp.

Easy alternative

[tverbeek]

Or we could raise and eat fewer cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[Z00L00K]

I'm not to worried about the cows anyway.

There have been animals around on earth a long time, and the cows are likely to be pushing away some other species, but overall the methane release into the atmosphere wouldn't be that different throughout history.

An attack on animals farting seems to be plain stupid related to so many other factors involved.

Re:Easy alternative

[truthsearch]

Or put them back on their natural grazing diet. They only output so much gas because they're not eating what they naturally would.

That would, in turn, force us to raise and eat fewer cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You do realize that the world's cow population has increased substantially over time, don't you? Also of note, ruminants produce substantially more methane than most other flavors of animal, because of their particular digestive setup.

Re:Easy alternative

[Cedric Tsui]

But there are many more cows per square kilometer in farm land than there are other animals.

Furthermore. Most animals don't have the 4 stomach system using anaerobic bacterial digestion. That's what makes the methane.

Re:Easy alternative

[Celeste R]

Regardless of how we want to spin it, our world is changing. Managing those changes before they overwhelm us is important too.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

There have been animals around on earth a long time

Not all animals are ruminants. Ruminants release methane due to enteric fermentation. Ruminants are a relatively development on the evolutionary tree. Furthermore, our large population of them in modern times is sustained only through high density industrial agriculture. For example, probably the greatest natural landscape for large grazing herd animals today are the Serengeti and Masai Mara plains. Combined, they only support 1.5 million wildebeest. Even the massive bison herds that once spread across the entire great plains numbered at only 60 million. We raise, what, 1.3 billion cattle?

History has never seen anywhere close to as many ruminants on the surface of the earth as we have today. Thank modern industrial agriculture for that.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the giant herds of buffalo and other large mammals has decreased by the billions over the last few thousand years. So it equals out in the end.

We need less people, not less cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

I've never understood why humans drink cow's milk. It's not natural.

It is now. Most mammals become lactose-interolant after infancy; it helps discourage continued breastfeeding. Humans have evolved lactose tolerance. A diet of dairy is supported by our genes. As for what's "natural", nature has evolved all sorts of crazy feeding systems that don't involve killing the animal -- dung eaters, ants farming honeydew from aphids, flesh parasites, intestinal parasites, blood feeders, etc. Why is this particular method any less unusual than them? I'd say it's far more humane than killing the animals for food -- nature's primary modus operandi.

Re:Easy alternative

[Jonathan]

1) As people have already said, there weren't *nearly* as many cows around before we started making them a major part of our diet
2) The cows that *were* around ate grass. Feeding cows corn, as farmers tend to do, fattens them up but gives them much more gas.

Re:Easy alternative

[shentino]

High carb isn't the problem, low fiber is.

Re:Easy alternative

[panthroman]

Seriously. Obviously 12% fewer cattle is the methane equivalent of "half a million cars off the road," according to their PR lady. So if everyone ate 12% less beef/dairy...

If you eat beef twice a week, then a 12% reduction is skipping one beef meal a month. One of the biggest 'vegetarian movement' mistakes was to paint vegetarianism as a black & white issue. If one meal a month can make this kind of environmental difference, vegetarians might do more for their cause if they applauded and promoted meat in moderation.

Re:Easy alternative

[Colonel Korn]

And then we could live with all the health consequences of high-carbohydrate diets. Which, if we take American's obesity trends after the move towards higher-carbohydrate diets since the 1970s, cost a damn sight more than global warming ever could.

Don't be fooled by the diet industry. Diets composed of almost exclusively carbohydrates are common among many the healthiest, most long-lived people in the world. Other extremely healthy people eat mostly fatty meats. Others eat mostly vegetables and fish. There are many paths to healthy eating, but all of them include a few common threads, such as eating less food.

To quote Michael Pollan, "Eat food. Note too much. Mostly plants."

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

One, beef and grains are not the only foods in existence. It's not a binary choice. And two, almost any health professional would tell you that a high-carb diet is preferable to a high cholesterol diet in terms of health consequences. There's a reason that the medical community was so against the Atkins diet. Atkins himself had had a heart attack, congestive heart failure, and hypertension late in his life (which he adimantly insisted had nothing to do with his high-fat diet -- really!), and it may ultimately have contributed to his death (although the primary cause appears to have been head injury). He was 6' and 258lbs at his time of death. Again, his family insists he gained 60 pounds during the coma after he fell. No, really. And even if that was the case, he'd still be "overweight" when he was injured.

Re:Easy alternative

[randomaxe]

So, you're suggesting that we supplement with more bacon?

Re:Easy alternative

[Chabil Ha']

We need less people, not less cows.

That's the spirit! We've been attacking this problem from the wrong angle. Since it is obvious that Man is responsible for climate change, we can just eliminate the species from the Earth and solve all our climate change problems.

Now, who to inherit the Earth once Homo sapien has been removed?

Re:Easy alternative

[Dare nMc]

Basically most animals spend 80% of their awake time foraging for food, that's why we don't need to copy "nature" and instead alter our diets to allow a lifestyle.

Show me one other animal who consumes another species' milk

well growing up on a farm, I have personally watched: cats, dogs, birds, pigs, numerous insects, and mice that drink other animals milk. basically about equal percentage do vs don't. maybe most don't require it in their diet (except many bacteria) or compose a regular portion of their diet (again similar to humans), but then again their is no single item in most animals diets they couldn't do without.
Similar arguments would make more sense with cooked/steamed foods (IE a good chunk of our diet, even a vegans diet) that no other animals follow that. Although humans don't require even meat to be cooked, just ones who haven't grown up eating raw meats. Same with processed foods, drinks, refrigerated items. Basically your argument works against most everything humans eat in the modern conviences.

Re:Easy alternative

[morgan_greywolf]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral. And carbon methane only has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 7 years, so the whole "carbon methane is more damaging than CO2" stuff is just complete nonsense.

The real question we need to ask ourselves is this:

Why is that we seem to have such a hard time divorcing the science from the politics and pseudoscience? I'm not one of those "global warming is BS" freaks, but as someone concerened about pollution and the effects of human activities on the ecosphere, I wish we would focus more on science and less on politics.

Re:Easy alternative

[badfish99]

I thought everyone was agreed that the cockroaches were next in line?

Re:Easy alternative

[ChefInnocent]

And I do thank the modern industrial agriculture for it. Now, please cut me off another rib eye, and cook it in bacon fat. While you are at it, would you mind passing the Russet Burbank potato along with the butter and sour cream? I quaff down another "Bud" while I wait.

Re:Easy alternative

[residieu]

Natural != Good, Unnatural != Evil. Milk tastes good, it's a good source of calcium. I'm not going to stop drinking it just because no other adult animal drinks milk. Humans do a lot of things that no other animals do.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

Name one thing that I wrote that is incorrect. The American Heart Association says it puts you at risk for heart disease. The American Medical Association has repeatedly gone on the attack against it. So has the American Dietetic Association. And Snopes categorizes the role of Atkin's heart problems in his death as "undetermined", citing the arguments of both sides, and links to his death certificate on The Smoking Gun. What "5 minutes on Google" are you looking at?

Re:Easy alternative

[OpenGLFan]

Agreed; and humans do a lot of things that other animals would do if they could.

I mean, cats didn't evolve to eat food out of tins, but if your cat could work a can opener then he'd be done with you for good.

Re:Easy alternative

[R.Mo_Robert]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral.

Not when they're fed corn that was shipped, using fossil fuels, halfway across the country to get there. (Let's not even go into the fact that this corn was produced using artificial fertilizer, derived from petroleum, and sprayed with pesticide--you guessed it, more petroleum. And the fact that the cow itself, after being processed, will be shipped halfway across the country again to reach your dinner plate--fossil fuels.) Also, cows are ruminants: they're supposed to eat grass. Grass is free, and its energy comes from the sun--not long-dead dinosaurs.

If all farmers farmed more locally and closer to organic practices, cows would be a lot closer to being carbon-neutral.

Re:Easy alternative

[hot soldering iron]

I heard about this a "few" years ago... Actually, the reduced methane production is sought after because it's energy wasted, instead of being converted into meat. My uncle has developed a small herd over the last 50 years that puts on 6lbs a day until they reach maturity (the average weight in his herd is over 1200 lbs). A friend of mine said they looked like giant sausages with legs. Selective breeding gave them rapid growth, strength, and a strong immune system (less expensive medications/vaccines). Less flatulence was just a nice side-effect! : )

Re:Easy alternative

[baKanale]

Yeah, we are!

Re:Easy alternative

[rbrander]

You got the sixty million right, but are an order of magnitude out on the current population of cows. Here's my comment to Salon magazine 2 years ago on this subject:
Here are my calculations, with references, courtesy of google and an hour of my time. Thanks also to the USDA and PBS.
Size of national herd, all cows and calves: 106 million.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Catt/Catt-07-20-2007.txt
Number on feed (multiplying their GHG impact): 11 million.
(in short, they are only on feed near The End.)
http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/cofd0907.txt
Number of bison they ecologically replaced, bison that ALSO produced GHGs:
60 million.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay8.html
OK, so because of the 11 million on feed, the 106 million cows have the GHG impact of a good 120 million grass-fed, so they have double the "natural" level produced by the bison?
But wait! Or, rather, weight:
Bull bison (37% of herd): 1800-2500 lb.
Cow bison (45%): 900-1200 lb.
Calves (18%) :35 lb up to numbers above
sources:
Herd composition:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-541X(198907)53%3A3%3C593%3ACOBPEW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R
Weight:
http://www.gunpowderbison.com/Kids%20Corner
So the TONNAGE of natural ruminants on the North American plains can be calculated from the above numbers (giving calves half the average of cow and bull) to be an "average bison" weight of 1559 lb. Times 60M, is 46.8 megatons.
The US herd is lighter because it's mostly younger than a natural one; we slaughter cows at 2 years, bison live 20, so a higher proportion of the total is calves.
My first reference also notes that just 33M of that national herd is over 500 lbs. Conservatively giving them all the full adult weight (from wikipedia, "cattle") halfway between 1300 and 1900 lb, and the average of the other 74M that are under 500lb, conservatively, at 400 lb...we get a total tonnage of beef at 41.2 megtons.
Bottom line: there are fewer tons of beef now than there were of bison in the 19th century. Beef eater's disturbance of the natural methane balance is zero, indeed it may be NEGATIVE.
Maybe not; 41.2MT is only 12% less than 46.8MT and my whole-hour of research may have missed a few things. Also, the amplification of GHG output by the 10% of the herd that's on feed is a factor. I'm willing to call it even, although my weight numbers were quite conservative.
So, there's no GHG impact at ALL, compared to the original, natural state. At least not in North America -- but what was the former methane production everywhere that are now cattle ranches? Most ranching is done where there was an equivalent animal before. And even swamps and rainforests have quite a bit of decomposition that produces methane.
Until you do that part of the calc - the previous GHG load from the former "natural" environment, you don't have a calculation, you have HALF a calculation.

Re:Easy alternative

[Samah]

~# cat "can of food"
cat: cannot open can of food
~#

Damn.

Re:Easy alternative

[crmarvin42]

Ok, most of your post is actually not far off of the mark. Cow are not carbon neutral, and the current distribution system is at least partially to blame. However I need to take a moment to beat you over the head for that last nonsensical sentence that nearly removes any value from your post.

Modern agriculture (ie Fertilisers, pesticides, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, antibiotics, posilac, et al.) is far "greener" than organic farming will ever be. I know this because I work in Agricultural research.

Modern fertilizers and pesitcides enable greater crop yeilds/acre, meaning less acres need to be planted, meaning less acres need to be driven by tractors both harvesting & planting. Organic production actually requires you pull out the tractor and appy fertilizer and pesticides more frequently (Organic doesn't say you can't, it only says you can't use specific ones becuase without both no one would be able to grow enough organic corn to feed their organic chickens) becuase it forces you to use fertilizers and pesticides that don't work as well. It also forbids the use of roundup ready crops that require a fraction of the fertilizer and pesitcide applications and can be planted without tilling the soil.

Tilling the soil is the single largest reason for nutrient leaching from soil into surface water when it rains. The tilling breaks up the soil, airing it out, and making it easier for rain to wash away important nutrients, thus requiring greater applications of fertilizers (See where I'm going with all of this?).

CAFOs enable producers to manage larger heards more efficiently, with a greater attention to detail. Some one that works with weanling pigs all day every day will have a better eye for which pigs are struggling than a farmer that only spends part of their day with the weanling pigs, and the rest of the day spread across the growers, finishers, boars, 1st and 2nd parity gilts, sows, and the farrowing house. It's akin a doctor specializing in one particular field of medicine instead of forcing them all to be General Practitioners.

Posilac (trade name for recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST) enables farmers to use less cow, and as a result less feed, to produce the same volume of milk. That kind of math shouldn't really need explanation or defending, but the organic movement forbids the use of posilac, despite it being molecularly identical to the naturally occuring bovine somatotropin normally found in milk. Milk from these cows contain BST at the same concentration and cannot be differentiate from milk from cows not injected with rBST. The fact that tests have been done where rBST and purified 'normal' BST have been injected into human tissue and proved to be too dissimilar to interact with the receptors for human sotmatotropin seems not to faze anyone for some reason.

Sub-theraputic use of antibiotics both prevents clinical, as well as sub-clinical infections and is primarily used in animals predisposed to infections due to stage of development (weaning comes first to mind). They also prevent the need to use much larger doses of theraputic antibiotics, and help animals grow more efficiently as less of the energy and nutrients in animal feed go toward growing bacterial populations and more goes toward growing the host animal. None of the data coming out of the EU in the wake of their complete ban of sub-theraputic antibiotics has shown any reduction in the prevalence or distribution of antibiotic resistance genes. My belief is that's because most people don't interact with farm animals on a regular basis, but they do go to doctors offices and hospitals where antibiotics are abused to a shameful degree (and all the bugs there can colonize humans, where many bugs that colonize pigs or chickens cannot colonize humans. The internal environment is too dissimilar.)

However, since I'm one of only a handful of people on /. with any actual education in the agricultural arena. Let the cherry picking of the topics for refutation with regurgitated FUD beign in 1... 2... 3...

Please let my pessimism be wrong for once.

Eat Mor Chikin?

[davidwr]

Or perhaps we should pig out on pork, the other white meat.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[morgan_greywolf]

Attention grammar nazis: In case you're not from the U.S., or don't have one located near you, "Eat Mor Chikin" is an advertising slogan used by Chick-Fil-A, a chain of quick-service restaurants that specialize in chicken sandwiches, in their advertising and commercials, which feature cows, who, of course, can't spell.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[freemywrld]

The original LOL-cows?

In unrelated news...

[nadamsieee]

An unexplained rash of spontaneous cow explosions has resulted in a glut in the Canadian beef market...

Re:In unrelated news...

[Dunbal]

An unexplained rash of spontaneous cow explosions has resulted in a glut in the Canadian beef market...

      Actually the glut is now all around and outside the Canadian beef market...

Grass

[Prien715]

Or you could have cows eat grass which does the same thing, and has nutritional benefits for the consumer. I know, it's radical.

Ridiculous

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Just udderly ridiculous!

Re:Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[davidwr]

But what about farts?
--
I live in my mom's basement, but I'm 15.

Ah, I see now.... :)

Eyes do funny things...

[DudeTheMath]

Did anyone else read that as taking "half a million cows ... off the road"? No? Just me, then.

Why doesn't this go away?

[NekSnappa]

I swear this is this most asinine thing around in the man made climate change circles. And yet it comes up again and again!

There are environmental issues with industrial livestock production. I just don't think this has a big enough impact on the environment to warrant the effort put into it.

As some one who lives in So. Maryland and enjoys kayaking in the Chesapeake Bay watershed I'm much more concerned with the nitrogen run-off from all of the poultry farms on the eastern shore. But Tyson, Purdue, etc. have such a large lobby (money wise at least) There won't be too much done about it.

Not to say that the Bay hasn't gotten healthier in the 25 years I've been living here. But between agricultural run-off and turning wetlands into housing developments it's not as good as it could be.

Use it

[edivad]

Just use the darn methane do power your farm. Problem solved!

Meat Vats

[Sponge Bath]

Get rid of most of the cow/pig/chicken altogether. Use special meat vats that grow cloned tissue in a special nutrient. No more digestion means no more burps and farts. Place the meat factories in all cities to save on transport. In the long term you could even add infrastructure to pipe liquified meat product directly to restaurants and homes where it could be formed and flavored.

Welcome to the world of the future!

Re:Fix the consumers

[dzfoo]

Most humans are already predisposed towards the herbivore end, that's why we breed so many cows, rather than, say, bobcats.

        -dZ.

Feed them what nature intended

[futuresheep]

Corn is not a natural food source for cows. It causes all sorts of issues by changing the ph balance of the cows stomachs, burping included. Feed them grass, alfalfa, and flax like one farmer did. There's no reason to genetically engineer them in this way. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525590,00.html Not only did the burps get cut back, but the cows are healthier cutting vet costs down, and the milk and beef is more nutritious. Milk and beef will cost a bit more, but considering the environmental and nutritional benefits of raising our cattle this way I think it's a fair trade off.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[canajin56]

First, while nature didn't intend cows to eat corn, I doubt it intended them to eat high concentrations of flaxseeds either. (And I don't really think nature intends anything, not being a person). Second, if you would RTFA, you would see that your suggestion, which is a good idea by the way, is also one that TFA suggests! Third, who said genetically engineered? The article didn't, the summary didn't, and not even the headline did, which is well above par for Slashdot fearmongering! They're talking about selective breeding. And it sounds like the gene they're looking for makes cows produce less methane by virtue of converting more food energy into muscle, which means they'll have less food fermenting into methane in their stomachs over long periods. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine that would have a byproduct of making the beef leaner.

The gist of the problem

[mzs]

The amount of carbon produced by the cow in its lifetime plus decomposition after death is essentially the same as if the cow had never lived and all the corn and soy it would have eaten simply decomposed. The problem is that a cow produces not just carbon in one form, it tends to produce methane (the burps referred to) and methane has a much larger impact in global warming than CO2. The reason that the cows produce large amounts of methane is because the bacteria in their rumen (first stomach) is not right for the diets of mostly corn and soy that they are typically fed and this produces the methane burps. (Incidentally that is why there is relatively little methane in cow farts, almost all of the methane is produced in the rumen.)

So one option is to feed cows mostly grass, that is not sustainable in the large industrial scale used. Another option would be to genetically engineer bacteria that produces less methane and introduce it to the cow rumen. That actually makes more sense than engineering cows with a rumen more like a stomach. Another far fetched option would be to capture the methane, then sequester or burn it outright (the green house gases then are much less harmful).

If you have ever been near an industrial cattle or dairy farm, the stench is unimaginable. In a large cattle farm you can see the methane pockets causing the horizon to wiggle.

I don't get it...

[hargrand]

Why isn't this posted as "Idle"?

Cow-goroos?

[wowbagger]

Kangaroos have a different microbe in their gut that captures the methane and makes that energy available to the 'roo. There had been talk of trying to get this microbe into cattle, which would not only reduce the methane output from the cattle but would also make more food energy available to the cow. What ever happened to that?

Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows do not produce 75% of total methane emissions. It goes
1. Wetlands
2. Rice fields
3. Ruminants

You don't here a lot about altering or doing away with 1 or 2. The oceans are also major contributors. Lets keep those too.

A major point that is never mentioned in these articles is that all of the methane generated by ruminants is from carbon that is already in the carbon cycle. The half a million cars that are "displaced" are generating their methane from carbon previously sequestered in fossil fuels. Additionally the current American cattle herd is around 100 million and declining. About were some estimates put the bison herd in the 1800s.

There is plenty wrong with our current system of agriculture. The environmental aspect of it can be dealt with by more informed farmers and consumers. We need to move away from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and corn culture and towards sustainable local farms. The article states that animals should be fed a higher energy diet (i.e. corn). The energy costs of producing that diet are astronomical as compared to a grass fed diet. The number one energy cost in producing a lb of corn is the Natural gas it takes to make the synthetic fertilizer. Guess what, the extraction of natural gas is an major methane contributor.

Lets put our focus on producing our food in a more sensible manner. People intuitively know that cows as a methane source is ridiculous hence the jokes. There are so many bigger environmental and ethical problems that we need to tackle in our food industry. Its these half truths get people side tracked away from the real issues. Go meet your farmer and make sure he's raising your food in a manner that you deem acceptable.

Re:Less but...

[Zakabog]

Just because they burp less doesn't necessarily mean they produce less methane... "We made a cow that burps less. However, it farts more."

If you read the article it states that it's not that they just "burp less" it's that they actually produce less methane.

Cow Tech

[uvajed_ekil]

Oh, great. Next it will be OBD computers and catalytic converters, and soon cows will be too difficult for the average person to maintain.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[dkleinsc]

Ahh, the old "Global Warming is not caused by humans, or not happening" theory.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why not one scientific organization has produced a convincing argument against the existence of global warming, while many other scientific studies have. The only possibilities I can think of that make your argument reasonable are some combination of:
  1. A vast conspiracy of climatologists made the whole thing up.
  2. Al Gore and some environmentalists cajoled and bullied the vast majority of climatologists into making the whole thing up.
  3. realcoolguy425 knows more about how the Earth's climate works than the vast majority of climatologists.
  4. There's some built-in bias that means that all climatologists are predisposed to seeing evidence of global warming when there isn't any.

United States asked to bear the burden

[pkbarbiedoll]

of global Co2 emissions. Not one word of the growing problem of Co2 belching factories in India, China and other parts of the third world. How many millions of cars would be "taken off the road" if just one of these colossal polluters were dismantled and moved to countries with strong environmental laws which require scrubbers among other things.

Problem already solved

[w0mprat]

Feeding cattle different grass, ie something similar to what they evolved to eat, solves the methane problem.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/06/08/omega-3s-in-a-cows-diet-provide-a-health-boost%E2%80%94to-the-atmosphere/

So other than making lots of money from selling a low-methane breed, I really don't see the point, we already have the solution to the methane problem, we were just feeding them wrong.

Re:Fix the consumers

[Chris Burke]

Most humans are already predisposed towards the herbivore end, that's why we breed so many cows, rather than, say, bobcats.

Well, as spokesperson for the National Bobcat Meat Council, all I can say is that you're missing out!

For the consumer, bobcat is a wonderful choice. Bobcat is delicious, naturally lean, high in vitamins and minerals, and, let's face it, a completely awesome thing to say you are eating. Imagine you're in your backyard at your grill, talking to your competitive neighbor Bill over the fence. "Hey Bill, how's it going?" you say. "Oh not bad, just grilling up some pork sausage on my new 80,000 btu propane grill. How bout you?" Bill says. "Oh, not bad, slumming it with my measly 20,000 btu grill... making bobcat burgers!" Bill is stunned. "Oh wow! You are my king! I worship you!" he says in one of those awkward vaguely homo-erotic moments that seem to happen around Bill a little too often. But he is right -- bobcat is the burger of kings.

And for the rancher, bobcat presents many exciting opportunities as well. For one, wolves and other predators will not fuck with your livestock. You can even put your pig or goat pens -- needed to feed the bobcats -- in the middle of the bobcat pens and provide the ultimate in protection for your herbivore stock as well! Also, if you're tired of complacent cows and the tedious and unexciting process of herding them for slaughter, well, you're in for a thrill! Any wannabe cowboy brand a cow, but come at a bobcat with a glowing red brand and get ready to prove your mandhood! Compare scars with other bobcatboys and see who really has what it takes! I had one rancher tell me that they were thinking of getting out of the business due to the lack of physical danger, until I took him on a tour of a bobcat ranch and one of the feisty rascals hiding in a dark corner nearly took his face off. Well I had him signed up that very day to start his own bobcat ranch!

Okay... I'm not going to lie. Bobcat ranching is hell. They're mean, ornery, antisocial, dangerous, and have no compunction about going for the junk. The only thing that rancher signed was the out-of-court settlement with the National Bobcat Meat Council for his injuries. But seriously, I need to push these bobcat ranches or I'm going to lose my job. We'll even start you out with a bunch of free livestock! We're up to our fucking necks in bobcats, come on take some off our hands. They aren't even that tasty but god damn cut me some slack I'm trying to move product here. Eat some fucking bobcat already!

- Chris Burke, spokesperson, National Bobcat Meat Council. NBMC says: "Eat some fucking bobcat already!"(tm)

Forgetting feedlots?

[proselyte_heretic]

High methane from cows is a symptom of the problem, which is that most beef is from feedlots. Not only is the huge amount of waste produced by the feedlots a large methane source, but also the fields that are used to grow the feed (mostly corn). This article (print version: http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=150244) explains that conventional feedlot agriculture emits carbon dioxide and methane both on the fields and the feedlots, while rotational intensive grazing sequesters carbon and emits much less methane.