Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Luring vogel Bomb here with another classic episode
Speaker 1: from our archives. We all do better work when we're
Speaker 1: less stressed out and better taking care of And if
Speaker 1: this applies to humans, does it apply to other animals
Speaker 1: like say, cows? Today's question is do cows given more
Speaker 1: positive interactions grow better and produce better milk? Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here, Let me take you to a farm.
Speaker 1: They're nineteen whole stein calves push their noses over waste
Speaker 1: high fences around individual pens. They're milling about in a
Speaker 1: red barn the width of a soccer field. It's dinner time.
Speaker 1: They're hungry, and they've just spotted their favorite person, a
Speaker 1: farmer pulling a green wagon loaded with bottles of warm milk.
Speaker 1: He lifts the bottles and feeds each in turn, coaxing
Speaker 1: shy calves and hedging strong ones as their tails whip
Speaker 1: and bellies full. The farmer rubs their necks and backs affectionately,
Speaker 1: scratching behind an ear too. A stereo plays classical music
Speaker 1: in the background, though it's mellow tunes are temporarily eclipsed
Speaker 1: by the wreckless of the meal in its place. The
Speaker 1: farmer offers a soothing monologue that settles over the calves
Speaker 1: black and white coats. The farmer, Dean Patterson, tells us,
Speaker 1: when you feed a calf a bottle of milk, and
Speaker 1: when you rub him on his necker, on his back
Speaker 1: and makes him feel so much better. He'll load the
Speaker 1: empty bottles back onto his wagon and return them to
Speaker 1: the milking parlor, which is housed in another barn. There
Speaker 1: he'll wash the bottles and leave them prepped for the
Speaker 1: evening feeding, but will continue to check on the calves
Speaker 1: throughout the day. Patterson, a seventy eight year old fourth
Speaker 1: generation farmer, is building relationships with these calves in the
Speaker 1: same way he's done for a lifetime. At Patterson Family Farms.
Speaker 1: As at most conventional dairies, calves are separated from their
Speaker 1: mothers within a day or two of birth, then housed
Speaker 1: individually and in age related groups, where they rely on
Speaker 1: people for sustenance and affection. This connection between calf and
Speaker 1: caretaker has been at the center of a research project
Speaker 1: by the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Animal Welfare at
Speaker 1: vetmad Uni, Vienna, a university of veterinary medicine in Austria.
Speaker 1: Stephanie Lerzel and her colleagues studied a hundred and four
Speaker 1: Holstein Friesian calves at a commercial dairy farm in Germany
Speaker 1: from birth to day fourteen. They struked the next of
Speaker 1: half of the calves for three minutes a day and
Speaker 1: did not pet the other half of the group. By
Speaker 1: day ninety, the calves who had experienced neck rubs weighed
Speaker 1: more than the control group by a seemingly small but
Speaker 1: completely significant three percent. This points to the positive influence
Speaker 1: of gentle human interaction on animal weight gain. Researchers also
Speaker 1: observed the quality of relationships between calves and caretakers through
Speaker 1: an avoidance distance test. The test, which measures the distance
Speaker 1: at which a calf will avoid a person who approaches
Speaker 1: it head on, revealed these stroked calves had a lower
Speaker 1: avoidance distance than the calves in the control group. In short,
Speaker 1: the calves who had been given special attention early on
Speaker 1: in their lives were less fearful and more welcoming when
Speaker 1: approached by people. While these results may seem elementary to
Speaker 1: people who have worked with animals, studying the emotional impact
Speaker 1: of humans on animals in commercial production is an emerging
Speaker 1: field that could have a far reaching impact on the
Speaker 1: animal's environments. Previous studies have shown that when heffer's gain
Speaker 1: weight more quickly, they go on to produce more milk.
Speaker 1: For the calves. In the vetmad Uni Vienna study, their
Speaker 1: three percent weight gain could translate into fifty ms. That's
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten pounds more milk per cow per year,
Speaker 1: says lerzel And. In two thousand one, a pair of
Speaker 1: psychologists at England's University of Leicester demonstrated that playing soothing
Speaker 1: music to dairy cows increased their milk production. Strategies like
Speaker 1: this aren't new to the Patterson Dairy, where classical music
Speaker 1: is played for cows and calves around the clock, says
Speaker 1: Diana Lanier, who earned a bachelor's degree in animal science
Speaker 1: production management before returning to Patterson family Farms to work
Speaker 1: alongside her grandfather, Dean Patterson, and her father and brother.
Speaker 1: Lanier said, there are a lot of things you can
Speaker 1: do to make cows more comfortable and show them you
Speaker 1: care for them. In turn, they will really better produce
Speaker 1: more milk and to give higher quality milk. The more
Speaker 1: you care for them, the more you get out of
Speaker 1: that relationship. Today's episode is based on the article study
Speaker 1: How's Grow Bigger, Give More Milk after early positive human
Speaker 1: interaction on how stuff works dot Com Written by Laurie L. D.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff works dot Com, and it is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clay. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
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