Early-Life Respiratory Emissions and concentrations of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O in pre-weaned Dairy-bred Calves

This dataset supports the publication “Early-Life Respiratory Emissions of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O in Pre-weaned Dairy-bred Calves” (Langford et al., 2026 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sae2.70141 ), which investigates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from calves during the transition from a milk-based diet to solid feed. The data were collected to quantify age-related changes in respiratory emission rates of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O), and to explore breed-level differences. The dataset includes 383 breath samples from 65 calves aged 12 to 86 days, comprising Hereford-cross, Aberdeen Angus-cross, and British Blue-cross breeds. Each record contains: Animal metadata: ID, breed, sex, age, interpolated weight Physiological measurements: respiration rate (breaths per minute) GHG metrics: emission rates and breath concentrations of CO₂ (g animal⁻¹ h⁻¹, ppm), CH₄ (mg animal⁻¹ h⁻¹, ppm), CH₄ (with and without eructation events removed) (mg animal⁻¹ h⁻¹, ppm), and N₂O (μg animal⁻¹ h⁻¹, ppb) Measurements were obtained using a custom-built respiratory mask and high-resolution gas analysers. Emission rates were calculated from breath concentrations, respiration rate, and estimated tidal volume based on body weight. Full methodological details, statistical analyses, and interpretation are provided in the associated publication. The data are provided in tabular format with clearly defined units and column headers. These data may be useful for researchers studying livestock emissions, rumen development, microbial colonisation, or evaluating mitigation strategies for GHG emissions in early-life cattle.