Do Happy Cows Really Make Better Milk?

OK, 'happy' might be a stretch, but researchers are looking into how cows given positive interactions (like back scritches) grow and produce milk versus less-content cows. Learn what the results say in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain
stuff luring vogel bomb Here. Let me take you to
a farm. They're nineteen whole steam calves push their noses
over waiste high fences around individual pens. They're milling about
in a red barn the width of a soccer field.
It's dinner time. They're hungry, and they've just spotted their

(00:22):
favorite person, a farmer pulling a green wagon loaded with
bottles of warm milk. He lifts the bottles and feeds
each in turn, coaxing shy calves and hedging strong ones.
As their tails whip and bellies full. The farmer rubs
their necks and backs affectionately, scratching behind an ear too.
A stereo plays classical music in the background, though its
mellow tunes are temporarily eclipsed by the wreckless of the

(00:45):
meal in its place. The farmer offers a soothing monologue
that settles over the calves black and white coats. The farmer,
Dean Patterson, tells us, when you feed a calf a
bottle of milk, and when you rub him on his necker,
on his back and makes him feel so much better,
he'll load the empty bottles back onto his wagon and
return them to the milking parlor, which is housed in
another barn. There, he'll wash the bottles and leave them

(01:07):
prepped for the evening feeding, but will continue to check
on the calves throughout the day. Patterson, a seventy eight
year old fourth generation farmer, is building relationships with these
calves in the same way he's done for a lifetime
at Patterson Family Farms. As at most conventional dairies, calves
are separated from their mothers within a day or two
of birth, then housed individually and in age related groups,

(01:29):
where they rely on people for sustenance and affection. This
connection between calf and caretaker has been at the center
of a research project by the Institute of Animal Husbandry
and Animal Welfare at vetmag Uni, Vienna, a university of
veterinary medicine in Austria. Stephanie Lerzel and her colleagues studied
a hundred and four Holstein Frisian calves at a commercial

(01:49):
dairy farm in Germany from birth to day fourteen. They
stroked the next of half of the calves for three
minutes a day and did not pet the other half
of the group. By day ninety the calves would experience
to neck rubs weighed more than the control group by
a seemingly small but completely significant three percent. This points
to the positive influence of gentle human interaction on animal

(02:09):
weight gain. Researchers also observed the quality of relationships between
calves and caretakers through an avoidance distance test. The test,
which measures the distance at which a calf will avoid
a person who approaches it head on, revealed these stroked
calves had a lower avoidance distance than the calves in
the control group. In short, the calves who had been
given special attention early on in their lives were less

(02:31):
fearful and more welcoming when approached by people. While these
results may seem elementary to people who have worked with animals,
studying the emotional impact of humans on animals in commercial
production is an emerging field that could have a far
reaching impact on the animals environments. Previous studies have shown
that when heffer's gain weight more quickly, they go on
to produce more milk. For the calves in the vet

(02:54):
mead Uni Vienna study, their three percent weight gain could
translate into fifty that's a hundred and ten pounds more
milk per cow per year, says Lurzel, and in two
thousand one, a pair of psychologists at England's University of
Lester demonstrated that playing soothing music to dairy cows increased
their milk production. Strategies like this aren't new to the
Patterson Dairy, where classical music is played for cows and

(03:16):
calves around the clock, says Diana Lanier, who earned a
bachelor's degree in animal science production management before returning to
Patterson Family Farms to work alongside her grandfather, Dean Patterson,
and her father and brother. Lanier said, there are a
lot of things you can do to make cows more
comfortable and show them you care for them. In turn,
they will grow better, produce more milk, and give higher

(03:37):
quality milk. The more you care for them, the more
you get out of that relationship. Today's episode was written
by Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tyler Clang. For
more on this and lots of other productive topics, visit
our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.