Seaweed as Livestock Food

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Seaweeds are a diverse group of plants with a complicated and contentious taxonomy. In general, seaweeds are classified into three groups, brown (Phaeophyceae), red (Rhodophyceae), and green (Chlorophyceae), based on pigment variability. Seaweeds have tremendous potential for human consumption, cosmetics, fertilizers, industrial gums, and chemicals. Researchers have also discovered that seaweeds have been used as animal feed in the livestock sector for thousands of years. However, out of the approximately 10,000 types of seaweeds, only a few are used in animal consumption, such as Ascophyllum nodosum, Laminaria species, Lithothamnion species, Macrocystis pyrifera, Sargassum species, Palmaria palmata, and Ulva species. According to previous studies, seaweeds have been incorporated into the diet of cows at less than 2% of the dry ingredients, but the isolation of compounds responsible for reducing methane production by cattle has not been done yet. It is crucial to isolate the various bioactive compounds in seaweeds and incorporate them into traditional animal feed to improve their nutritional and functional characteristics. Seaweeds have also been utilized in fish feed, where finely ground seaweed meal made from brown seaweeds acts as a binder in formulated feeds, with the alginate present in seaweed functioning as the binder. Although successful results have been achieved with seaweed consumption for animal feed, researchers have raised concerns about metal uptake from the surrounding water.