The effect of feeding high fat diet to beef cattle on manure composition and gaseous emission from a feedlot pen surface.
BACKGROUND
Dietary manipulation is a common practice to mitigate gaseous emission from livestock production facilities, and the variation of fat level in the diet has shown great influence on ruminal volatile fatty acids (VFA) and enteric methane generation. The changes in dietary fat levels influence rumen chemistry that could modify manure nutrient composition along with odor and gaseous emissions from manure management facilities.


METHODS
A field experiment was carried out on beef cattle feedlots to investigate the effect of four levels of dietary fat concentrations (3 to 5.5 %) on the manure composition and gaseous emissions (methane-CH4, nitrous oxide-N2O, carbon dioxide-CO2 and hydrogen sulfide-H2S) from the feedlot pen surface. The experiment was carried out over a 5-month period from June to October during North Dakota's summer-fall climatic condition. Air and manure sampling was conducted five times at a 20-30 day intervals.


RESULTS
Overall, this research indicated that fat levels in diet have no or little effect on the nutrient composition of manure and gaseous emission from the pens with cattle fed with different diet. Though significant variation of gaseous emission and manure composition were observed between different sampling periods, no effect of high fat diet was observed on manure composition and gaseous emission.


CONCLUSIONS
It can be concluded that addition of fat to animal diet may not have any impact on gaseous emission and manure compositions.
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA.
Dhan Prasad
DP
Gautam
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA.
Shafiqur
S
Rahman
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58102 USA.
Md Saidul
MS
Borhan
NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center, Carrington, ND 58421 USA.
Chanda
C
Engel
Concentration; Diet; Gaseous emission; Manure composition; Volatile fatty acids