A FEED additive trial in a Darling Downs feedlot has become the first to return increased weight gains using the methane-reducing feed additive asparagopsis.
Stockyard Beef trialled Seaforest’s SEAFEED on a 200-day feeding program, by putting it in a ration with steam-flaked wheat and barley. Run by well-known nutritionists Bovine Dynamics, the results of the trial were released in the Translational Animal Science journal earlier this month.
According to the study, the feed additives reduced methane emissions by 51.7pc and increased live weight gain by an average 19.7kg. It also produced a similar eating quality to conventional beef.
Most of the increased weight gain happened in the first 80 days.
Beef Central understands few studies have been done that allow the results to draw correlations between the feed additives and weight gain.
One study was done in a long-fed Wagyu feeding program with the Australian Agricultural Company, which found a decreased weight gain using the feed additives, which was evidently due to a corresponding reduction in feed intake.
Cost recovery for the feed additives is ongoing issue in the commercialisation of the products.
A working group is currently trying to put together a carbon farming methodology, which will allow the use of the feed additives to generate carbon credits. That process will need to go through Government approvals once the methodology drafted.
Productivity is the other side many are looking for and Beef Central understands is still a question researchers are trying to answer with more commercial trials.
- To read the study click here
- For more on the development of the feed additives you can hear from University of New England researcher Fran Cowley who spoke to Kerry Lonergan on Beef Central’s Weekly Grill
My only concern about this interesting development is whilst the quality of the meat is unaffected, has research into how the additive affects the cattles’ health generally?