Cows.....methane....vegetarianism.....cows......climatechange......milk.....cows.....cheese.......grass.......conservation.....cows.... ......ooooo and a few million sheep, deer, antelope, bison, buffalo......cows......methane....global warming....

This has been a reccuring theme on tv over the last few weeks......
I have a veggie husband.....yep Pete is a veggie.....he always has been....for over 30 years....and yes I grow meat.....
I have had some interesting anonymous comments posted on the blog from those who want to bash me for murdering my animals, causing climate chaos or a combination of the 2!.....I usually delete them as they cannot be bothered to leave their name or because they are rude!
So I got to thinking and doing some asking around.....what do people really know about ruminants....the vegetarian grazing animals with 4 stomachs that include cattle, sheep, goats, deer, buffalo and antelope to name a few!
They are animals designed to graze and browse large quantities of plant matter, then sit down and regurgitate it, re chew it (chewing the cud) and then swallow it again.
They all belch methane as part of their digestive system....
So why are cattle suddenly so bad, why are we all supposed to go veggie and is it as simple as all that to stop greenhouse gas?

Wellllll.....noooo!
Lets look at it bit by bit...
Cattle (and other ruminants) are designed to eat herbage....grass etc....and if that was all they ate plus hay in winter when the feed value of grass was low, they would be ok, if given a huge area to roam.....about 4 acres per cow...They would be able to produce and feed a calf, but that would be it....just like a bison or buffalo.
However man has developed 'breeds' of cattle accentuating their atributes for rapid growth, big muscules and milk and as a result we have beef cattle such as the Hereford that produces only enough milk for its calf but puts on loads of meat!.....it has a good frame designed to carry beef!
On the other hand there is the Fresian that is a large bony cow that produces lots of milk ....more than a calf can manage and often if not milked for humans can suckle 2 or 3 calves!(not its own as cows generally have one - foster calves!)
So we have beef and dairy cattle.
All cattle breed annually with a gestation of 9 months...so eah year a cow will calve and if a beef breed she will raise her calf and if a dairy breed she will not as the milk is needed for the milk and dairy products industry....
Now the beef cow and calf will be kept extensively on lots of grass, and little corn/grain feed will be given....therefore less methane will be produced as more grain fed to cattle = more methane produced by the digestive system!......The calf will grow on and eventually become prime steak etc!
The dairy cow will also eat grass and hay BUT will be fed huge quantities of grain to keep milk production going as she must produce well..... more milk from less cows is more efficient! She needs a high protein diet containing a lot of protein, usually soya based.
The dairy cows annual calf will be either a beef cross bred (its father being a beefy bull) or a dairy calf (its father being a dairy breed like mum) The beef calves will be reared for meat, the female dairy calves for herd replacements and.....the dairy bull calves.....which are skinny and not at all beefy....are often shot at birth now the veal trade to which they used to go to is not popular....(some are raised as rose veal)

So......the beef animal is extensive, lower in methane, is a good conservation tool as it grazes areas that need cattle to maintain biodiversity, may consume some grain, but not high protein....and provides beef for meat eaters.....however....
The dairy cow needs lush grazing, often rye grass which is poor for biodiversity, needs huge quantities of maize and grass silage, needs large ammounts of concentrate grain feed containing a lot of soya, produces huge quantities of poo.....which is collected in big slurry tanks...and produces huge quantities of......methane!
And the produce.....all vegetarian....plus an annual calf.....

So what can we conclude from this.....?
Well its complex....if we want to eat meat we have to demand local extensively farmed grass fed meat (if its beef or lamb) free range pork and poultry and that is going to be expensive as its been produced slowly and conservatively without a lot of cheap grain feed with a lot less animals to the acre. Therefore the decision must be to eat a lot less meat but make it much better quality meat that has done a good job for biodiversity and has not 'cost the earth'.....
If we want to eat meat every day we must face up to either spending huge amounts of money to feed our meat habit or buy cheap mass produced meat that has been pushed to weight by feeding lots of grains (as in the picture in the cattle parks of the USA and S America)
The dairy cow which produces the milk and therefore the butter and cheese is a bigger producer of greenhouse gas....because of course everyone wants to eat tons of cheese, butter, yoghurt etc and drink gallons of milk and there is the sticky question of the fate of the calf it must produce each year to keep it milking! Therefore there is just as much of a dilemma with dairy products as there is with meat eating!!!
So veggies next time you yell from the rooftops that meat eaters are causing global warming take a hard look as how much you consume in the way of dairy produce!

Personally I don't have any problem with anyone eating anything......so long as they have thought long and hard about the consequences.......food for thought eh?