Keep Your Cows Happy and Avoid Stress-Related Health Problems in Them

Cows Are Heavy Feeders

Since my childhood, my family has reared cows, and through these decades of nurturing the cows, playing with them as a kid, checking on them every morning, taking them to graze and running after them when they turn naughty and with their sheer life force drag you along to nip and chew the buds of bananas and vegetables, I have always thought about their happiness and moods.

Nothing makes a cow happier than a vast patch of outdoor grass. A cow normally eats 3% of its body weight; a 1000-pound cow needs 30 pounds of dry matter per day. Now, if we assume that this fodder is to be eaten by grazing, the cow would require 2.6 acres for a full stomach throughout the year. This is the requirement under 100% grazing conditions. What these estimates suggest is not that we should keep 2.6 acres for each cow but that it signifies how important the availability of land, either as pastures or as fodder cultivation space, is to keep a cow well-fed and happy.

Cows Love Outdoors

Cows are heavily set animals and need regular exercise to keep a healthy body and to give maximum yield. Their digestive system is suitable for digesting huge quantities of fibrous grass and is not that adaptive to excessive consumption of grains. In a patch of wild greens and grass, there is a plant diversity that satisfies the palatal as well as nutritional needs of a cow. Just like how we like to eat different kinds of food to experience myriad tastes, a cow would also love to taste and chew different plants with distinct tastes. They also love to feel the wind and sunlight on their body as we do and to stroll as they eat. Sometimes, one could see them stopping suddenly from a grazing frenzy and standing still, listening to a distant sound or contemplating the stillness of the surroundings. This is another moment when a cow is relaxed and happy. When cows are housed in crowded spaces, and their movement is highly restrictive, they show an odd behaviour of extensive tongue-rolling, a manifestation of stress.

Cows Hate Bright Colours

Sight is the strongest sense of a cow. Still, cows can only see a limited colour spectrum, their eyes might be seeing red and green as black or grey and just detecting blue and yellow as distinctive shades of highly toned-down versions. If in a puddle of water, the sun shines harshly, they do not like the high colour contrast, and they would avoid the place and sight. They have a blessing of sight that humans lack, though; their vision is panoramic; without moving their heads, they see almost 360 degrees. They have quite good night vision, too. It is advisable to remove bright-coloured and colour-contrasting objects from near the vicinity of the cow shed and where cows graze. Shadows, in contrast to heavily lighted areas, also increase the stress levels of cows.

Cows Hate Puddles and Like Airy Cowsheds

A healthy cow can be bred and reared only in a healthy environment, which must comprise well-lit and well-ventilated cow sheds with hygiene and comfortable flooring. The floors have to be built in a slanting mode so that urine and cow dung do not puddle and accumulate, forcing the cows to stand in them. Keeping the floors non-slip also increases the comfort level for cows. The floor must not be too smooth or too rough, and it has to be kept as dry as possible. All these floor specifications are crucial for the hoof health of cows and their general well-being. Lack of hygiene can also lead to diseases such as mastitis and lameness.

A study published by the Tropical Animal Health and Production Journal and conducted in Brazil showed that cows hate water puddles. When the scientists filled the puddles with dirt, the cows were happier.

Heat Stress

Heat control is often maintained by farmers by installing fans inside the cow shed when humidity and temperature are high. The cow sheds need to have a constant supply of fresh water accessible to cows 24/7. Even if you are rearing cows inside cattle sheds, every day, let them have at least one hour of outdoor time when they can move their body freely and get some exercise. Usually, the ideal environment for a cow is a Temperature Humidity Index of below 71. Lighting that is not less than 200 lux during the day and sufficient darkness during the night helps the animals maintain sleep cycles and daytime communication among the herd.

Heat stress in cows can cause many behavioural disturbances, such as

Overt manifestation of sucking and licking in calves

Prepuce sucking and tongue rolling

Excessive grooming

Digestion problems

Erratic mounting behaviour

Cows Like It Silent and Calm

Cows get spooked by loud noises. It is better not to shout and make a clamour near a cow shed or where the cows are standing. Calm handling of cows by their handlers will result in increased milk production and improved stress response. Cows feel relaxed when they are taken care of by the same handlers who are predictable and friendly. Unfamiliar sounds, objects, and smells often terrify cows, which is the reason to keep the environment calm and silent.

Touch and Pet Your Cows

The owners touching their cows and petting them increases the comfort level of the animals; the human handlers talking to them also helps the cows relax and feel safe. Having regular contact with the cows is essential to keep them friendly to human interactions such as moving, bathing, and milking. The best way to pet a cow is to stroke and scratch around its head and neck. Hitting the cow only stresses it more and makes it more difficult to handle. With regular contact with the animals and the trust that grows along with that, the handlers will find it easier to impart invasive and uncomfortable treatment methods when the cow is ill. Good handling of a cow results in proper milk let down by the cows, whether milking is done manually or mechanically. It is a good strategy to feed the cows after milking, which will act as an incentive for better milk letdown. When a cow is stressed, the oxytocin secretion in its body decreases, and oxytocin is instrumental in milk letdown; this is the simple science behind the need to relax a cow.

Resting Space

Cows are ruminants used to chewing cud, which is regurgitated food, and they take a lot of time for this internal processing of food. For this activity, they need a daily resting place. It is important to ensure that there is sufficient space for resting for each of the cows in the herd. Usually, a cow likes to lie down a little space away from other cows. Hence, the farmer has to ensure that it does not become crowded even if all the cows lie down simultaneously.

Tethering is Not Good

Lifetime tethering sometimes results in deformities in our bovine friends. Especially in tropical dairy farms, and particularly in small homestead farming, cows are often kept tethered the whole day. Tethered animals are often dirtier than untethered ones because the tethered ones are compelled to remain in places where they urinate and defecate. The lack of hygiene not only impacts the health of the cow but also affects the quality of the milk produced.

There is a saying in my region that all the cows behind the first cow that moves will follow it all the way along. This is true to some extent because, as herd animals, cows tend to flock together as they walk, but the flocking is not as intensive as, say, in ducks. However, this flocking habit can be made use of to make the cows move in routine paths and come back to the cow sheds on their own. By giving some directions and keeping regular timings for grazing and returning to the shed, cows can be taught to move as we desire, even without tethering.

Stereotypical Behaviour, a Sign of Distress

Sometimes, a cow will keep on making the same odd sound, which indicates some discomfort, physical or emotional. The most occurring cause of oral stereotyping is feeding deficiency. Cows also exhibit certain repetitive odd movements when they feel physical discomfort due to tethering and the inability to move around. Dropping feed, wasting water by lapping, and throwing feed into the dirt are also stress-related behaviours caused by low-quality feed, stress and boredom. Baulking is another behavioural problem caused by stress, fear or dissatisfaction.

Cows Love Slow Music

Hundreds of farmer anecdotes, as reported from all over India, suggest that the milk let down of a cow is better when soft, melodious music is played during the time of milking. There are many videos available on YouTube that show grazing cows rushing to listen to accordion music. Many mythological tales of India, including the most famous tale of Lord Krishna, who was a cow herder, suggest that cows love flute music. Many dairy farmers all over the world play music while milking cows. It is often reported that classical music relaxes cows, whereas upbeat music stresses them out. A 2001 study conducted by the University of Leicester found that milk production increased by 3% when slow tunes such as “Everybody Hurts”, “What a Difference a Day Makes”, “Perfect Day/Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony”, and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” were played in cow sheds during milking.

The exact figures for the increase in milk production witnessed by the Leicester University Study were as follows-

“Slow music = 24.0995 litres of milk per cow per day

No music = 23.8907 litres of milk per cow per day

Fast music = 23.3666 litres of milk per cow per day

Fast music is defined as> 120 beats per minute Slow music is defined as < 100 beats per minute”.

Keep Your Cows Happy

Cows in your backyard, whether they be pets, milking cows, or cows reared for meat, give you better response and yield when living in harmony and peace. Even in the case of meat cows, there is no need to make their lives miserable as long as they live. Keeping them healthy and happy is your moral, ethical, and economic responsibility.

References

Cow talk: Understanding Dairy Cow Behaviour to Improve Their Welfare on Asian Farms, Rebecca Doyle and John Moran, 2015, CSIRO Publishing.

Moo-d Music: Do Cows Really Prefer Slow Jams?, Maria Godoy, March 6, 2014, npr.org Research on Bovine environment management to yield more milk, Janet Marlow, Sound Behaviorist, Founder and CEO of Pet Acoustics Inc., June 2001, BBC, No.67, Psychologists’ Trials Find Music tempo Affects Productivity, ecdveterenaria.com