Methane emissions in horses are a subject of interest due to their potential impact on the environment and equine digestion. Methane is a greenhouse gas produced during the digestive process, particularly through enteric fermentation in the hindgut of horses. The production of methane is influenced by factors such as diet composition, feed intake, and the microbial population in the digestive tract. Understanding methane emissions in horses is important for evaluating their environmental footprint and improving nutritional strategies. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that investigate the production, measurement, and implications of methane emissions in horses, as well as strategies for mitigation.
Treby S, Grover SP.Peatlands are globally significant carbon sinks, but when disturbed, have the potential to release carbon back to the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. Feral horse populations in the Australian Alps degrade Sphagnum peatlands, which are highly sensitive to disturbance. However, the link between this degradation and peatland carbon cycling is not understood. Here, we compared the autumn daytime carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH) fluxes of 12 alpine and subalpine Sphagnum peatlands in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia. The presence of feral horses at these sites was correlated with higher carb...
Karasu GK, Rogers CW, Gee EK.Sustainability is the balancing act of optimizing the use of current resources without compromising the current or future environment. Within the agriculture sector the primary focus of sustainability has been to reduce environmental pollution, specifically greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions, nitrogen emissions, and leaching. For the equine industry the first step towards sustainability is the documentation and critique of current feeding and management practices to permit modifications to enable the industry meet social and legislative obligations. As a monogastric hindgut fermenter on a per k...
Elghandour MMMY, Maggiolino A, García EIC, Sánchez-Aparicio P, De Palo P, Ponce-Covarrubias JL, Pliego AB, Salem AZM.This review examines the available data regarding the positive effects of microencapsulated essential oils (EOs) on the nutrition, metabolism, and possibly the methane emission of horses. A literature review was conducted on the effect of microencapsulated (EOs) on the health of horses. The information comprises articles published in recent years in indexed journals. The results indicate that mixtures of microencapsulated EOs may be beneficial to equine health due to their antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, as well as their effects on enteric methane production, nutrient absorption, and i...
Weiland K, Alge K, Mautner A, Bauer A, Bismarck A.Nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) has key applications in composites, water filters and as emulsifiers. The affinity of NFC to water is a challenge, as it negatively influences its integrity. Lignin, a major component of plant biomass, is a natural hydrophobiser. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of biomass to produce biomethane allows to up-concentrate lignin in the fermentation residue containing lignocellulosic fibres. Horse manure was used as substrate for biogas production from which nanolignocellulose fibres (LCNF) were extracted. A biogas yield of 207 L kg with a methane concentration of 65 % was...
Wunderlich G, Bull M, Ross T, Rose M, Chapman B.The equine gastrointestinal tract is a self-sufficient fermentation system, housing a complex microbial consortium that acts synergistically and independently to break down complex lignocellulolytic material that enters the equine gut. Despite being strict herbivores, equids such as horses and zebras lack the diversity of enzymes needed to completely break down plant tissue, instead relying on their resident microbes to carry out fibrolysis to yield vital energy sources such as short chain fatty acids. The bulk of equine digestion occurs in the large intestine, where digesta is fermented for 3...
Alvarado TD, Elghandour MMMY, Ekanem NJ, Alcala-Canto Y, Velázquez AE, Pacheco EBF, Purba RAP, Salem AZM.The present study was conducted to investigate the aqueous extracts of Azadirachta indica (AZN), Cnidoscolus angustidens (CNA), and their combination (MIX) at dosages of 0-, 0.6-, 1.2-, and 1.8- mL for their ability to reduce greenhouse gases and fermentation profiles in an in vitro study using horse feces and a nutrient-dense diet (as substrate). The quantity of greenhouse gas and fermentation profiles were determined in in vitro incubation for 48 h. Extracts of AZN, CNA, and MIX reduced total gas production of the incubated and degraded substrates in a dose-dependent and time-dependent manne...
Acosta JAD, Elghandour MMMY, Mariezcurrena-Berasain MD, Adegbeye MJ, Fajemisin AN, Pliego AB, Salem AZM.This study aimed to evaluate the dietary administration of the Caesalpinia coriaria (CC) extract for 30 days on in vitro fecal greenhouse gases production. Fecal samples, as inoculums, were collected from horses given daily 0- (Fecal 0), 60- (Fecal 60) and 120- (Fecal 60) mL CC aqueous extract per animal. The extract dose was mixed with the morning feeding diet at 6:00 h for each horse. During incubation, 0-, 0.6-, 1.2- and 1.8-mL CC extracts were added to the basal diet which was fed to horses (as subtract) and evaluated with each fecal type. Feces from the horses given no CC extract produc...
Carlos-Pinedo S, Wang Z.Long-term sustainable biogas production requires different raw material alternatives, especially when reducing the most desirable organic substrate, food waste, which has been set as a goal in the 2030 Agenda. In Sweden, horse manure (HM) is generated in large quantities, and due to its physical and chemical characteristics, it has the potential to be used as a raw material to produce biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD). In order to investigate the challenges that HM digestion can impose in terms of methane yield and/or digestate quality, the modified ORganic WAste REsearch (ORWARE) AD mod...
Khusro A, Sahibzada MUK, Khan SU, Rajagopal R, Elghandour MMMY, Salem AZM, Kuppusamy P, Alcala-Canto Y, Tirado-González DN.Greenhouse gases emission from livestock is the major concern for the ecosystem. Despite the lower contribution of non-ruminants towards greenhouse gas emission as compared to the ruminants, the emission of methane (CH) gas from equines is expected to be increased in future due to its increasing population. Thus, it is essential to find or screen potential anti-methanogenic agent in a cost-effective and quicker manner. Considering this, the present investigation was aimed to analyze anti-methanogenic characteristic of bioactive compounds of safflower oil by targeting methanogenesis catalyzing ...
Kinoshita Y, Niwa H, Uchida-Fujii E, Nukada T.Microbial communities are commonly studied by using amplicon sequencing of part of the 16S rRNA gene. Sequencing of the full-length 16S rRNA gene can provide higher taxonomic resolution and accuracy. To obtain even higher taxonomic resolution, with as few false-positives as possible, we assessed a method using long amplicon sequencing targeting the rRNA operon combined with a CCMetagen pipeline. Taxonomic assignment had > 90% accuracy at the species level in a mock sample and at the family level in equine fecal samples, generating similar taxonomic composition as shotgun sequencing. The...
Martin-Rosset W, Andueza D, Vermorel M.The metabolisable energy (ME) content of feeds is a better estimate of their 'true' energy value than their digestible energy (DE) content, because ME takes account of the gross energy of methane (GEgas) and the gross energy of urine (GEurine) losses. The accuracy and precision of the Gesellschaft für Ernährungsphysiologie (GfE) and Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) systems for predicting the DE and ME contents of diets for horses were compared using the results of a study comprising 15 mixed diets. The INRA system was more accurate than the GfE system for predicting DE, G...
Khusro A, Aarti C, Salem AZM, Pliego AB, Rivas-Caceres RR.Methane (CH) emission from nonruminant livestock, particularly equines, is a colossal burden for veterinarians worldwide. In view of this, the present context was investigated to predict the antimethanogenic attributes of Moringa oleifera L. associated phytocomponents by targeting methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR) receptor in horses using in silico tools. Initially, the pharmacokinetics and ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) properties of 26 phytocomponents were analyzed using Lipinski's rule of five and Swiss ADME tool, respectively. Among all the tested phytocomponent...
García EDA, Khusro A, Pacheco EBF, Adegbeye MJ, Barbabosa-Pliego A, Lagunas BC, Salas JMC, Mateos RG, Aarti C, Elghandour MMMY.The present context was designed to investigate the efficacy of devil fish (DF; Plecostomus sp.) silage and Staphylococcus saprophyticus on fermentation characteristics as well as greenhouse gases production mitigation attributes in horses. Four levels of ensiled DF at 0 (control DF0), 6 (DF6), 12 (DF12), and 18 (DF18) % were added into the diet. Moreover, three doses of S. saprophyticus (0, 1, and 3 mL/g dry matter [DM]) were used for in vitro fecal fermentation. The use of ensiled DF resulted in increased (P < .0001) pH during fermentation. The asymptotic gas production was the highest (P...
Yang J, Wang Y, Cui X, Zhang Y, Yu Z.Huge numbers of microorganisms reside in livestock faeces and constitute one of the most complex microbial ecosystems. Here, faecal microbial communities of three typical livestock in Xilingol steppe grassland, i.e. sheep, cattle, and horse, were investigated by Illumina MiSeq sequencing and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes comprised the majority of bacterial communities in three livestock faeces. Sordariomycetes, Leotiomycetes, and Dothideomycetes were dominant in fungal communities, as well as Methanobacteria and Methanomicrobia were domin...
Wolford AN, Coverdale JA, Leatherwood JL, Pinchak WE, Anderson RC, Wickersham TA.Eight previously cecally cannulated Quarter Horse geldings were utilized in a crossover design with two 28-d periods with a 21-d washout period between to evaluate the influence of housing on the cecal environment and dry matter intake (DMI). Horses were adapted to diet and housing from day 1 to 19, DMI was determined from day 20 to 24, and cecal fluid was collected on day 28. Horses were paired by age and body weight (BW) and randomly assigned to treatment. Treatments consisted of housing horses individually in stalls or group housed in a pen. Regardless of treatment, all horses were individu...
Adegbeye MJ, Elghandour MMMY, Barbabosa-Pliego A, Monroy JC, Mellado M, Ravi Kanth Reddy P, Salem AZM.Several concerns exist regarding horse rearing such as environmental pollution, antibiotics resistance, digestive disorders, mycotoxins contamination of animal feed, gut health management, and improvement of feed efficiency. Nanoparticles have the potential to address these issues and thus could be used as feed additive. Citrate reduces and stabilizes gold nanoparticles, alongside biosynthesized silver nanoparticles have the potential to prolong and improve digestive enzyme activity, which would enhance starch digestibility in the stomach. Zinc oxide and selenium nanoparticles could be used to...
Elghandour MMMY, Adegbeye MJ, Barbabosa-Pilego A, Perez NR, Hernández SR, Zaragoza-Bastida A, Salem AZM.Greenhouses gas emission mitigation is a very important aspect of earth sustainability with greenhouse gasses reduction, a focus of agricultural and petrochemical industries. Methane is produced in nonruminant herbivores such as horses because they undergo hindgut fermentation. Although equine produce less methane than ruminant, increasing population of horses might increase their contribution to the present 1.2 to 1.7 Tg, estimate. Diet, feeding frequency, season, genome, and protozoa population influence methane production equine. In population, Methanomicrobiales, Methanosarcinales, Methan...
Murru F, Fliegerova K, Mura E, Mrázek J, Kopečný J, Moniello G.The diversity of the methanogenic archaea associated with the six segments of the horse and donkey hindgut (caecum, right ventral colon, left ventral colon, left dorsal colon, right dorsal colon, and rectum) was analyzed using 16S rDNA gene clone library. A total of 641 positive clones, 321 from the horse and 320 from the donkey hindgut, were examined by the RFLP, revealing 9 different ribotypes, 8 in the horse and 5 in the donkey hindgut. In both the animals Methanobacteriales (Methanobrevibacter-like sequences) and Methanomicrobiales (Methanocorpusculum-like sequences) were detected as the d...
Hadin S, Eriksson O.Horse keeping is of great economic, social and environmental benefit for society, but causes environmental impacts throughout the whole chain from feed production to manure treatment. According to national statistics, the number of horses in Sweden is continually increasing and is currently approximately 360,000. This in turn leads to increasing amounts of horse manure that have to be managed and treated. Current practices could cause local and global environmental impacts due to poor performance or lack of proper management. Horse manure with its content of nutrients and organic material can ...
Dansen O, Pellikaan WF, Hendriks WH, Dijkstra J, Jacobs MP, Everts H, van Doorn DA.Methane production from Welsh ponies fed 2 isoenergetic diets (NE basis) at maintenance was studied in a crossover design with 4 mature geldings (230 ± 10.5 kg BW, mean ± SE). Treatments included a roughage-only (R) diet (5.1 kg DM/d) or a roughage plus cereal mix (RC) diet (2.5 kg DM hay/d plus 1.1 kg DM cereal mix/d). For both diets, the same grass hay was used (898 g DM/kg and 4.5 MJ NE/kg DM) and a commercial cereal mix was used in the RC diet (890 g DM/kg and 9.6 MJ NE/kg DM). Ponies were housed in pairs in climate-controlled respiration chambers. Carbon dioxide production (CO2), oxygen...
Belaunzaran X, Bessa RJ, Lavín P, Mantecón AR, Kramer JK, Aldai N.The consumption of horse-meat is currently not popular in most countries, but because of its availability and recognized nutritional value consumption is slowly increasing in several western European countries based on claims that it could be an alternative red meat. In this review, horse-meat production, trade and supply values have been summarized. In addition, the advantage of horse production is noted because of its lower methane emissions and increased uptake, particularly of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which is based on its digestive physiology. Of particular interest in thi...
Böske J, Wirth B, Garlipp F, Mumme J, Van den Weghe H.Energetic use of complex lignocellulosic wastes has gained global interest. Thermophilic digestion of horse manure based on straw was investigated using the upflow anaerobic solid-state (UASS) process. Increasing the organic loading rate from 2.5 to 5.5gvsL(-)(1)d(-)(1) enhanced the average methane production rate from 0.387 to 0.687LCH4L(-)(1)d(-)(1), whereas the yield decreased from 154.8 to 124.8LCH4kgvs(-)(1). A single-stage and two-stage process design showed almost the same performance. Compared to prior experiments at mesophilic conditions, thermophilic conditions showed a significantly...
Böske J, Wirth B, Garlipp F, Mumme J, Van den Weghe H.Aim of this study was to investigate the use of upflow anaerobic solid-state (UASS) digestion for treating horse manure. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests conducted for varying mixtures of dung (hay and silage feed) and bedding material (wheat straw, flax, hemp, wood chips) showed that straw mixed with hay horse dung has the highest potential of [Formula: see text] . Continuous mesophilic digestion was conducted for 238 days using a single-stage UASS reactor (27 L) and a two-stage UASS system with an anaerobic filter (AF, 21 L). Increasing the organic loading rate (OLR) from 2.5 to 4.5...
Lwin KO, Matsui H.Comparative analysis of methanogen compositions in the feces of horse and pony was carried out by constructing the α -subunit of methyl coenzyme-M reductase (mcrA) gene and 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rRNA) clone libraries. The mcrA clone library analysis indicated that Methanomicrobiales was predominant in both horse and pony. Furthermore, most of the clones of the 16S rRNA gene library showed that Methanomicrobiales was also predominant in horse and pony, but the LIBSHUFF analysis showed that the horse and pony libraries were significantly different (P < 0.05). Most of operational taxono...
Wartell BA, Krumins V, Alt J, Kang K, Schwab BJ, Fennell DE.Substantial stall waste is generated from horses on softwood bedding. The methane potential (G(pot)) of horse manure and constructed mixtures of stall waste with softwood bedding was determined at 35°C. G(pot) of 68, 191 and 273 mL/g volatile solids (VS) were estimated for three separate batches of horse manure, indicating variability in the material. Cumulative energy production over 20-40 days ranged from 3.11 ± 0.92 to 8.45 ± 5.42 × 10(5)kJ/metric ton wet weight horse manure alone, and from 1.69 ± 0.39 to 3.91 ± 0.47 × 10(5)kJ/metric ton wet weight horse manure plus softwood stall be...
Cui Z, Shi J, Li Y.The spent wheat straw from horse stall bedding has lower cellulose and hemicellulose contents, but higher volatile fatty acid content than raw wheat straw. Biogas production from solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) of spent wheat straw and raw wheat straw was compared in this study. The SS-AD tests were conducted at 22% total solids (TS) content using inoculum from a liquid AD system at three feedstock-to-inoculum (F/I) ratios of 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0. Daily methane yields of spent wheat straw peaked 8 and 3 days earlier than those of raw wheat straw at F/I ratios of 2.0 and 4.0, respectively....
Franz R, Soliva CR, Kreuzer M, Hummel J, Clauss M.It is assumed that small herbivores produce negligible amounts of methane, but it is unclear whether this is a physiological peculiarity or simply a scaling effect. A respiratory chamber experiment was conducted with six rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus, 1.57±0.31 kg body mass) and six guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus, 0.79±0.07 kg) offered grass hay ad libitum. Daily dry matter (DM) intake and DM digestibility were 50±6 g kg⁻⁰·⁷⁵ d⁻¹ and 55±6% in rabbits and 59±11 g kg⁻⁰·⁷⁵ d⁻¹ and 61±3% in guinea pigs, respectively. Methane production was similar for both species (0.2...
Kienzle E, Zeyner A.The development of a metabolizable energy (ME) system for horses is described. Predictive equations for gross energy and digestible energy (DE) are revisited. The relationship between feed protein content and renal energy losses and the relationship between feed fibre content and methane energy losses were analysed in a literature review to develop predictive equations for ME. In horses, renal energy losses are much higher than losses by methane energy. Renal energy losses were correlated more strictly to protein intake than to digestible protein intake. The reason probably is that per gram of...
Fleming K, Hessel EF, Van den Weghe HF.The aim of this study was to compare different types of bedding and mucking regimens used in horse stables on the generation of airborne particulate matter <10 microm (PM10) and 3 biogenic gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and especially ammonia). Three separate experiments were undertaken. The experiments were carried out in an enclosed stable (9.7 m long, 8.7 m wide, and 3.5 m high) that had 5 single boxes housing 4 horses. The measuring instruments were set up in the middle of one side of the stable. In Exp. 1, 3 types of bedding material (wheat straw, straw pellets, and wood shavings) ...
Vervuert I, Voigt K, Hollands T, Cí·¯ord D, Coenen M.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of feeding oats alone before or after feeding chopped alfalfa or, in admixture with the alfalfa on the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses of horses as well as post-prandial breath hydrogen and methane excretion. Horses were fed in a randomized order, chopped alfalfa as a source of dietary fibre and unprocessed oats as a source of starch. Chopped alfalfa intake was adjusted to a crude fibre intake of 0.5 g/kg bodyweight (BW) per meal and the oats intake was adjusted to a starch intake of 2 g/kg BW per meal. The feeds were offered in three d...
Belaunzaran X, Bessa RJ, Lavín P, Mantecón AR, Kramer JK, Aldai N.The consumption of horse-meat is currently not popular in most countries, but because of its availability and recognized nutritional value consumption is slowly increasing in several western European countries based on claims that it could be an alternative red meat. In this review, horse-meat production, trade and supply values have been summarized. In addition, the advantage of horse production is noted because of its lower methane emissions and increased uptake, particularly of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which is based on its digestive physiology. Of particular interest in thi...
Miller TL, Lin C.Formal nomenclature is proposed for five methanogens, isolated from horse, pig, cow, goose and sheep faeces, that represent four novel species of the genus Methanobrevibacter. The four species, Methanobrevibacter gottschalkii sp. nov., Methanobrevibacter thaueri sp. nov., Methanobrevibacter woesei sp. nov. and Methanobrevibacter wolinii sp. nov., are distinguished from each other by a lack of genomic DNA reassociation and from previously described members of the genus on the basis of differences in the sequences of the 16S rRNA genes.
Morvan B, Bonnemoy F, Fonty G, Gouet P.Total number of bacteria, cellulolytic bacteria, and H2-utilizing microbial populations (methanogenic archaea, acetogenic and sulfate-reducing bacteria) were enumerated in fresh rumen samples from sheep, cattle, buffaloes, deer, llamas, and caecal samples from horses. Methanogens and sulfate reducers were found in all samples, whereas acetogenes were not detected in some samples of each animal. Archaea methanogens were the largest H2-utilizing populations in all animals, and a correlation was observed between the numbers of methanogens and those of cellulolytic microorganisms. Higher counts of...
Kinoshita Y, Niwa H, Uchida-Fujii E, Nukada T.Microbial communities are commonly studied by using amplicon sequencing of part of the 16S rRNA gene. Sequencing of the full-length 16S rRNA gene can provide higher taxonomic resolution and accuracy. To obtain even higher taxonomic resolution, with as few false-positives as possible, we assessed a method using long amplicon sequencing targeting the rRNA operon combined with a CCMetagen pipeline. Taxonomic assignment had > 90% accuracy at the species level in a mock sample and at the family level in equine fecal samples, generating similar taxonomic composition as shotgun sequencing. The...
Lwin KO, Matsui H.Comparative analysis of methanogen compositions in the feces of horse and pony was carried out by constructing the α -subunit of methyl coenzyme-M reductase (mcrA) gene and 16S ribosomal RNA gene (16S rRNA) clone libraries. The mcrA clone library analysis indicated that Methanomicrobiales was predominant in both horse and pony. Furthermore, most of the clones of the 16S rRNA gene library showed that Methanomicrobiales was also predominant in horse and pony, but the LIBSHUFF analysis showed that the horse and pony libraries were significantly different (P < 0.05). Most of operational taxono...
Adegbeye MJ, Elghandour MMMY, Barbabosa-Pliego A, Monroy JC, Mellado M, Ravi Kanth Reddy P, Salem AZM.Several concerns exist regarding horse rearing such as environmental pollution, antibiotics resistance, digestive disorders, mycotoxins contamination of animal feed, gut health management, and improvement of feed efficiency. Nanoparticles have the potential to address these issues and thus could be used as feed additive. Citrate reduces and stabilizes gold nanoparticles, alongside biosynthesized silver nanoparticles have the potential to prolong and improve digestive enzyme activity, which would enhance starch digestibility in the stomach. Zinc oxide and selenium nanoparticles could be used to...
Jensen BB.Studies of methanogenic bacteria present in monogastric animals are still scarce. Methanogens have been isolated from faeces of rat, horse, pig, monkey, baboon, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giant panda, goose, turkey and chicken. The predominant methanogen in all except the chicken and turkey is species of Methanobrevibacterium. The chicken and turkey harbour species of Methanogenium. In pig the population of methanogenic bacteria is more than 30 times as dense in the distal colon as in the caecum. This finding is in agreement with the finding that the rate of methane production is much higher in...
Franz R, Soliva CR, Kreuzer M, Hummel J, Clauss M.It is assumed that small herbivores produce negligible amounts of methane, but it is unclear whether this is a physiological peculiarity or simply a scaling effect. A respiratory chamber experiment was conducted with six rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus, 1.57±0.31 kg body mass) and six guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus, 0.79±0.07 kg) offered grass hay ad libitum. Daily dry matter (DM) intake and DM digestibility were 50±6 g kg⁻⁰·⁷⁵ d⁻¹ and 55±6% in rabbits and 59±11 g kg⁻⁰·⁷⁵ d⁻¹ and 61±3% in guinea pigs, respectively. Methane production was similar for both species (0.2...
Murru F, Fliegerova K, Mura E, Mrázek J, Kopečný J, Moniello G.The diversity of the methanogenic archaea associated with the six segments of the horse and donkey hindgut (caecum, right ventral colon, left ventral colon, left dorsal colon, right dorsal colon, and rectum) was analyzed using 16S rDNA gene clone library. A total of 641 positive clones, 321 from the horse and 320 from the donkey hindgut, were examined by the RFLP, revealing 9 different ribotypes, 8 in the horse and 5 in the donkey hindgut. In both the animals Methanobacteriales (Methanobrevibacter-like sequences) and Methanomicrobiales (Methanocorpusculum-like sequences) were detected as the d...
Kienzle E, Zeyner A.The development of a metabolizable energy (ME) system for horses is described. Predictive equations for gross energy and digestible energy (DE) are revisited. The relationship between feed protein content and renal energy losses and the relationship between feed fibre content and methane energy losses were analysed in a literature review to develop predictive equations for ME. In horses, renal energy losses are much higher than losses by methane energy. Renal energy losses were correlated more strictly to protein intake than to digestible protein intake. The reason probably is that per gram of...
Fleming K, Hessel EF, Van den Weghe HF.The aim of this study was to compare different types of bedding and mucking regimens used in horse stables on the generation of airborne particulate matter <10 microm (PM10) and 3 biogenic gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and especially ammonia). Three separate experiments were undertaken. The experiments were carried out in an enclosed stable (9.7 m long, 8.7 m wide, and 3.5 m high) that had 5 single boxes housing 4 horses. The measuring instruments were set up in the middle of one side of the stable. In Exp. 1, 3 types of bedding material (wheat straw, straw pellets, and wood shavings) ...
Acosta JAD, Elghandour MMMY, Mariezcurrena-Berasain MD, Adegbeye MJ, Fajemisin AN, Pliego AB, Salem AZM.This study aimed to evaluate the dietary administration of the Caesalpinia coriaria (CC) extract for 30 days on in vitro fecal greenhouse gases production. Fecal samples, as inoculums, were collected from horses given daily 0- (Fecal 0), 60- (Fecal 60) and 120- (Fecal 60) mL CC aqueous extract per animal. The extract dose was mixed with the morning feeding diet at 6:00 h for each horse. During incubation, 0-, 0.6-, 1.2- and 1.8-mL CC extracts were added to the basal diet which was fed to horses (as subtract) and evaluated with each fecal type. Feces from the horses given no CC extract produc...
Khusro A, Sahibzada MUK, Khan SU, Rajagopal R, Elghandour MMMY, Salem AZM, Kuppusamy P, Alcala-Canto Y, Tirado-González DN.Greenhouse gases emission from livestock is the major concern for the ecosystem. Despite the lower contribution of non-ruminants towards greenhouse gas emission as compared to the ruminants, the emission of methane (CH) gas from equines is expected to be increased in future due to its increasing population. Thus, it is essential to find or screen potential anti-methanogenic agent in a cost-effective and quicker manner. Considering this, the present investigation was aimed to analyze anti-methanogenic characteristic of bioactive compounds of safflower oil by targeting methanogenesis catalyzing ...
Elghandour MMMY, Adegbeye MJ, Barbabosa-Pilego A, Perez NR, Hernández SR, Zaragoza-Bastida A, Salem AZM.Greenhouses gas emission mitigation is a very important aspect of earth sustainability with greenhouse gasses reduction, a focus of agricultural and petrochemical industries. Methane is produced in nonruminant herbivores such as horses because they undergo hindgut fermentation. Although equine produce less methane than ruminant, increasing population of horses might increase their contribution to the present 1.2 to 1.7 Tg, estimate. Diet, feeding frequency, season, genome, and protozoa population influence methane production equine. In population, Methanomicrobiales, Methanosarcinales, Methan...
Steffey EP, Johnson BH, Eger EI, Howland D.Breathing 79% nitrous oxide (N2O) in oxygen increased the rate of accumulation of bowel gas during intraluminal bowel segment infusions of hydrogen, methane (CH4), air, or carbon dioxide (CO2) in four pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs more than did breathing 100% oxygen. A N2O-associated increase in the volume of naturally produced intestinal gas in five halothane-anesthetized ponies corroborated the findings in the dog studies. In a second group of four dogs a bolus of CH4 or CO2 was injected into the bowel lumen. When the dogs breathed O2 the bowel gas volume decreased. Gas was virtually absen...
Wartell BA, Krumins V, Alt J, Kang K, Schwab BJ, Fennell DE.Substantial stall waste is generated from horses on softwood bedding. The methane potential (G(pot)) of horse manure and constructed mixtures of stall waste with softwood bedding was determined at 35°C. G(pot) of 68, 191 and 273 mL/g volatile solids (VS) were estimated for three separate batches of horse manure, indicating variability in the material. Cumulative energy production over 20-40 days ranged from 3.11 ± 0.92 to 8.45 ± 5.42 × 10(5)kJ/metric ton wet weight horse manure alone, and from 1.69 ± 0.39 to 3.91 ± 0.47 × 10(5)kJ/metric ton wet weight horse manure plus softwood stall be...
Böske J, Wirth B, Garlipp F, Mumme J, Van den Weghe H.Energetic use of complex lignocellulosic wastes has gained global interest. Thermophilic digestion of horse manure based on straw was investigated using the upflow anaerobic solid-state (UASS) process. Increasing the organic loading rate from 2.5 to 5.5gvsL(-)(1)d(-)(1) enhanced the average methane production rate from 0.387 to 0.687LCH4L(-)(1)d(-)(1), whereas the yield decreased from 154.8 to 124.8LCH4kgvs(-)(1). A single-stage and two-stage process design showed almost the same performance. Compared to prior experiments at mesophilic conditions, thermophilic conditions showed a significantly...
Alvarado TD, Elghandour MMMY, Ekanem NJ, Alcala-Canto Y, Velázquez AE, Pacheco EBF, Purba RAP, Salem AZM.The present study was conducted to investigate the aqueous extracts of Azadirachta indica (AZN), Cnidoscolus angustidens (CNA), and their combination (MIX) at dosages of 0-, 0.6-, 1.2-, and 1.8- mL for their ability to reduce greenhouse gases and fermentation profiles in an in vitro study using horse feces and a nutrient-dense diet (as substrate). The quantity of greenhouse gas and fermentation profiles were determined in in vitro incubation for 48 h. Extracts of AZN, CNA, and MIX reduced total gas production of the incubated and degraded substrates in a dose-dependent and time-dependent manne...
Elghandour MMMY, Maggiolino A, García EIC, Sánchez-Aparicio P, De Palo P, Ponce-Covarrubias JL, Pliego AB, Salem AZM.This review examines the available data regarding the positive effects of microencapsulated essential oils (EOs) on the nutrition, metabolism, and possibly the methane emission of horses. A literature review was conducted on the effect of microencapsulated (EOs) on the health of horses. The information comprises articles published in recent years in indexed journals. The results indicate that mixtures of microencapsulated EOs may be beneficial to equine health due to their antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, as well as their effects on enteric methane production, nutrient absorption, and i...
Kusch S, Oechsner H, Jungbluth T.Experiments on methanogenesis from horse dung were conducted in laboratory-scale batch reactors in order to determine the substrate performance in a solid-phase digestion process, more specifically in terms of potential energy recovery and suitable process technology. Dung from a horse stable with straw bedding was used. The temperature was kept in the mesophilic range. In the percolation process (with process water sprinkled over the stacked biomass) a proportion of 10-20% of solid inoculum (pre-digested horse dung) was found to be suitable. Comparative experiments with both percolation and f...
Karasu GK, Rogers CW, Gee EK.Sustainability is the balancing act of optimizing the use of current resources without compromising the current or future environment. Within the agriculture sector the primary focus of sustainability has been to reduce environmental pollution, specifically greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions, nitrogen emissions, and leaching. For the equine industry the first step towards sustainability is the documentation and critique of current feeding and management practices to permit modifications to enable the industry meet social and legislative obligations. As a monogastric hindgut fermenter on a per k...
Turner PG, Dugdale A, Young IS, Taylor S.Monitoring the composition of gases breathed by anaesthetised patients requires measurement methods with fast responses, high accuracy and good reliability. There is also an increasing demand for systems to be able to monitor more than one target analyte simultaneously, but some gas analysers can be sensitive to the presence of methane gas in exhaled breath, consequently leading to inaccurate measurements of the anaesthetic agent. This study investigated the feasibility of employing portable quadrupole mass spectrometry to monitor volatile anaesthetic agents (halothane, isoflurane and sevoflur...
Cui Z, Shi J, Li Y.The spent wheat straw from horse stall bedding has lower cellulose and hemicellulose contents, but higher volatile fatty acid content than raw wheat straw. Biogas production from solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) of spent wheat straw and raw wheat straw was compared in this study. The SS-AD tests were conducted at 22% total solids (TS) content using inoculum from a liquid AD system at three feedstock-to-inoculum (F/I) ratios of 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0. Daily methane yields of spent wheat straw peaked 8 and 3 days earlier than those of raw wheat straw at F/I ratios of 2.0 and 4.0, respectively....
Khusro A, Aarti C, Salem AZM, Pliego AB, Rivas-Caceres RR.Methane (CH) emission from nonruminant livestock, particularly equines, is a colossal burden for veterinarians worldwide. In view of this, the present context was investigated to predict the antimethanogenic attributes of Moringa oleifera L. associated phytocomponents by targeting methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR) receptor in horses using in silico tools. Initially, the pharmacokinetics and ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) properties of 26 phytocomponents were analyzed using Lipinski's rule of five and Swiss ADME tool, respectively. Among all the tested phytocomponent...
Vervuert I, Voigt K, Hollands T, Cí·¯ord D, Coenen M.Four horses were randomly fed a diet containing rolled, micronised or extruded barley; the barley intake was adjusted to supply 2 g starch/kg bodyweight per day. During a 10-day acclimatisation period the horses were also fed 1 kg grass hay/100 kg bodyweight per day. Samples of blood and breath were collected at the end of each period after the test meal of barley had been fed after a 12-hour overnight fast. The glycaemic and insulinaemic responses of the horses were measured as an indication of the pre-caecal digestibility of starch, and postprandial breath hydrogen and methane were measured ...
Vervuert I, Voigt K, Hollands T, Cí·¯ord D, Coenen M.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of feeding oats alone before or after feeding chopped alfalfa or, in admixture with the alfalfa on the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses of horses as well as post-prandial breath hydrogen and methane excretion. Horses were fed in a randomized order, chopped alfalfa as a source of dietary fibre and unprocessed oats as a source of starch. Chopped alfalfa intake was adjusted to a crude fibre intake of 0.5 g/kg bodyweight (BW) per meal and the oats intake was adjusted to a starch intake of 2 g/kg BW per meal. The feeds were offered in three d...
Weiland K, Alge K, Mautner A, Bauer A, Bismarck A.Nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) has key applications in composites, water filters and as emulsifiers. The affinity of NFC to water is a challenge, as it negatively influences its integrity. Lignin, a major component of plant biomass, is a natural hydrophobiser. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of biomass to produce biomethane allows to up-concentrate lignin in the fermentation residue containing lignocellulosic fibres. Horse manure was used as substrate for biogas production from which nanolignocellulose fibres (LCNF) were extracted. A biogas yield of 207 L kg with a methane concentration of 65 % was...
Yang J, Wang Y, Cui X, Zhang Y, Yu Z.Huge numbers of microorganisms reside in livestock faeces and constitute one of the most complex microbial ecosystems. Here, faecal microbial communities of three typical livestock in Xilingol steppe grassland, i.e. sheep, cattle, and horse, were investigated by Illumina MiSeq sequencing and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes comprised the majority of bacterial communities in three livestock faeces. Sordariomycetes, Leotiomycetes, and Dothideomycetes were dominant in fungal communities, as well as Methanobacteria and Methanomicrobia were domin...
Böske J, Wirth B, Garlipp F, Mumme J, Van den Weghe H.Aim of this study was to investigate the use of upflow anaerobic solid-state (UASS) digestion for treating horse manure. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests conducted for varying mixtures of dung (hay and silage feed) and bedding material (wheat straw, flax, hemp, wood chips) showed that straw mixed with hay horse dung has the highest potential of [Formula: see text] . Continuous mesophilic digestion was conducted for 238 days using a single-stage UASS reactor (27 L) and a two-stage UASS system with an anaerobic filter (AF, 21 L). Increasing the organic loading rate (OLR) from 2.5 to 4.5...
