Pardon Me? A Burp-Free Sheep

Breeding sheep to belch less

Why don’t livestock mind their manners?  You might have heard how sheep and cows are contributing to global climate change by the mere fact of their… um… methane emissions (16% of all global greenhouse gas emissions and 66% of agricultural emissions).  Seems that the animals cannot stop burping and farting.

Some people have pointed to the less-than-natural diet consumed on factory farms. Changing their feed could help reduce the unsavory behavior, but some people complain about the added cost of doing so.

Is there a sheep finishing school?  How can we nip the problem in the clover bud?

What if we could just breed burp-free sheep?  Research scientists in Australia are looking to identify a genetic link that results in less belching – the leading cause of sheep emissions.

Australia’s Sheep Cooperative Research Council and the New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment are cooperating in the genetic engineering research.  John Goopy told ABC news:

“Ninety per cent of the methane that sheep and cattle and goats produce comes from the rumen, and that’s burped out.”

The scientists’ goal is to breed sheep that emit less methane – a gas which is many times more dangerous from a global warming standpoint than carbon dioxide.

Towards a less gassy sheep?

I don’t know about you, but its hard enough to work on controlling my own kids’ methane emissions.  Can you imagine studying the amount of sheep methane in specially designed pens?  Where is Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs when you need him?

So far, the researchers have found that the more the sheep eat, the more they belch (shocking).  But, they have also noticed differences in sheep burping between individual animals.  By discovering the underlying reasons and focusing on reproducing the favorable natural variations, a sheep belch could be less lethal in the future, because it would be less frequent.

There’s no pulling the wool over our eyes – reducing methane farm emissions is not only necessary, but responsible farming in the 21st century.

Will you be one of the people that “sheepishly” admit that selective breeding of livestock can lead both to fresher air and a more temperate planet?