Harmful cow gas.
Have you ever seen cows eating grass in a field? While they are munching, they also belch and release a gas called methane into the air. This gas can be bad for the planet!
Did you know that one cow can release about 220 pounds (100 kg) of methane every year? That’s a lot! Even though methane doesn’t stay in the air as long as carbon dioxide, it is stronger and can make the Earth warmer.
The reason for cows belching so much methane.
Cows have four stomachs, which help them digest tough grass. When cows eat, the food goes into their first stomach. Inside, tiny bacteria start to break it down. While doing this, the cow makes methane and burps it out!
How can we reduce methane from cows?
Cows are very important to us. They give us milk. But we need to find ways to keep cows and still reduce the methane they make.
Scientists have an exciting idea: seaweed pellets! They found that if cows eat seaweed, they release much less methane.
In fact, giving cows seaweed can reduce methane by almost 40%! This has worked for both dairy cows and beef cattle.
How was this test done?
Scientists wanted to see if feeding cows seaweed really works. They did a study with 24 cows in Montana, USA. Half of the cows ate seaweed, and the others didn’t.
They used special machines to measure how much methane the cows burped. The cows that ate seaweed burped less methane!
This shows that feeding cows seaweed can help fight climate change by reducing methane.
