The Use of Sniffer Analyzer to Measure Enteric Methane Emissions Under Commercial Conditions in Dairy Cow

Enteric methane emissions are the largest source of agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs), presenting a major challenge due to methane's high global warming potential and short atmospheric lifespan.Primarily produced in the rumen during fiber digestion by methanogenic archaea, methane (CH 4 ) emissions must be accurately quantified to develop effective mitigation strategies.While reference methods, such as the use of metabolic chambers (MC), offer high precision, they are impractical for use under commercial farm conditions.This study was conducted over 28 days and evaluates the use of a sniffer analyzer for continuous, non-invasive CH 4 measurement across 46 dairy cows under commercial conditions.The method allows the collection of a large dataset from a high number of productive animals (average milk yield 40.36 kg11.15kg) and demonstrates good accuracy in on-farm settings.Results show an average CH 4 emission of 368 ppm daily, with 32% variability between individual cows, allowing for the identification of "efficient" cows-those with high milk production and lower CH 4 emissions.Integrating further metrics like dry matter intake (DMI) and body weight (BW) would enrich insights into methane output.The sniffer analyzer thus shows promise as a scalable tool for methane monitoring, advancing environmental sustainability in dairy production.