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A European Union Council rule mandates “that cattle housed in groups should be given sufficient space so that they can all lie down simultaneously”. Researchers at Oxford University and Clarkson University in New York state were curious to determine whether this was necessary. Do cows ever all lie down at the same time?
Their key insight, the team says, was to realise “it is biologically plausible to view [cattle] as oscillators … During the first stage (standing/feeding), they stand up to graze but they strongly prefer to lie down and ‘ruminate’ or chew the cud for the second stage (lying/ruminating). They thus oscillate between two stages.”
The researchers “modelled the eating, lying and standing dynamics of a cow using a piecewise linear dynamical system … We chose a form of coupling based on cows having an increased desire to eat if they notice another cow eating and an increased desire to lie down if they notice another cow lying down.” This, they say, led to at least one unexpected discovery: “[We] showed that it is possible for cows to synchronise less when the coupling is increased.”
I’m not sure what implications this has for livestock producers, but this is not the first study of its kind, as you’ll see in an article at The Guardian. Link -via Improbable Research, where you can find the worst version of Deck The Halls ever recorded.
(Image credit: Graham Turner/The Guardian)
Smallpox was the first disease to be declared completely eradicated. Last year, we told you that rinderpest, a scourge of cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals, became the second disease completely wiped from the earth by human intervention. Now you can read the story of how it was done.
The long but little-known campaign to conquer rinderpest is a tribute to the skill and bravery of “big animal” veterinarians, who fought the disease in remote and sometimes war-torn areas — across arid stretches of Africa bigger than Europe, in the Arabian desert and on the Mongolian steppes.
“The role of veterinarians in protecting society is underappreciated,” said Dr. Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, at whose headquarters Tuesday’s ceremony is being held. “We do more than just take care of fleas, bathe mascots and vaccinate Pooch.”
The victory is also proof that the conquest of smallpox was not just an unrepeatable fluke, a golden medical moment that will never be seen again. Since it was declared eradicated in 1980, several other diseases — like polio, Guinea worm, river blindness, elephantiasis, measles and iodine deficiency — have frustrated intensive, costly efforts to do the same to them. The eradication of rinderpest shows what can be done when field commanders combine scientific advances and new tactics.
The New York Times has the saga of rinderpest, from its effects on ancient civilizations to the successful (but long) eradication process. Link -via reddit
A farmer in south Armagh, Northen Ireland, thought someone was trying to steal his cattle, as they were found outside several times after being locked in the barn for the night. When a camera was installed in the barn, the culprit was found. It was Daisy, the smartest of the cows. Link -via Arbroath
A goose and a bull near Grisborne, New Zealand, have been attached to each other for ten years:
The friendship between a Highland cattle beast and a goose was forged in January 2001 in the paddocks of Knapdale Eco Lodge off Back Ormond Road, after the two bonded following the death of one of their mates.
The goose has since become an unlikely member of the Highland cattle herd and is completely devoted to Hamish, born two weeks after the goose lost her mate.
The unlikely pair have been inseparable since.
The goose is a jealous lover and tries to drive off any other animal that approaches the bull. The owner notes that the relationship is somewhat one sided — the goose is more fond of the bull than the other way around.
Link | Photo: Rebecca Grunwell/Gisborne Herald
by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff (Image credit: Flickr user Patricia van Casteren)
Bulls care little about the redness of a matador’s cape. Psychologists have been pretty sure about that since 1923, when George M. Stratton of the University of California published a study called “The Color Red, and the Anger of Cattle.” The full citation is:
“The Color Red, and the Anger of Cattle,” George M. Stratton, Psychological Review, vol. 30, no. 4, July 1923, pp. 321–5.
“It is probable,” Professor Stratton opined, “that this popular belief arises from the fact that cattle, and particularly bulls, have attacked persons displaying red, when the cause of the attack lay in the behavior of the person, in his strangeness, or in other factors apart from the color itself. The human knowledge that red is the color of blood, and that blood is, or seemingly should be, exciting, doubtless has added its own support to this fallacy.”
Professor Stratton, aided by a Miss Morrison and a Mr. Blodgett, conducted an experiment on several small herds of cattle,forty head altogether: a mixture of bulls and bullocks (castrated bulls) and cows and calves, including some who were accustomed to wandering the range and others who lived in barns.
The researchers obtained white, black, red and green strips of cloth, each measuring two by six feet. These they attached “endwise to a line stretched high enough to let the animals go easily under it; from this line the colors hung their 6 feet of length free of the ground, well-separated, and ready to flutter in the breeze.” (Image credit: Flickr user inthesitymad)
The cattle showed indifference to the banners, except sometimes when a breeze made the cloth flutter. Males and females reacted the same way, as did “tame” and “wild” animals. Red did nothing for them.
Farmers seem to have already suspected this. Professor Stratton surveyed some. He reports that “Of 66 such persons who have favored me with their careful replies, I find that 38 believe that red never excites cattle to anger; 15 believe that red usually does not excite them to anger, although exceptionally it may; 8 believe that it usually so excites, though exceptionally it may not; and 3 believe that it always so excites.”
One of those three dissenters described her experience with red-hating cattle: “A lively little Jersey cow whom I had known all her six years of life, chased me through a barbed wire fence when I was wearing a red dress and sweater, and never did so before or after. I changed to a dull gray, and reentered the corral, and she paid no attention to me, and let me feed and water her as usual. Also a Durham bull whom I had raised from a calf, and was a perfect family pet, chased me till I fell from sight through some brush when I was wearing the same outfit of crimson.”
More typical, however, was the farmer who told Professor Stratton: “In referring to the saying, ‘Like waving a red rag before a bull,’ I have found that to wave anything before a bull is dangerous business.” (Image credit: Flickr user Multimaniaco)
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This article is republished with permission from the July-August 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
They obviously appreciate a little culture out in the pasture. -via Arbroath
Veterinarians have no choice when they need to check a cow for pregnancy or infection. The standard procedure is to stick your arm up the cow’s rectum. The technique is difficult to teach to veterinary students because, well, it’s dark in there.
That’s why veterinarian and computer scientist Sarah Baillie has created the “Haptic Cow,” a virtual, touch-feedback device that mimics the feeling of real bovine anatomy, placed inside a fiberglass model of a cow’s rear end.
“With this technology, students can feel something that feels like the inside of a real cow, but I or another instructor can be following their movements on a monitor,” said Baillie, who teaches at the Royal Veterinary College in London. “This means we can say, ‘Come back a bit or go left a bit.’ It actually means you can direct them.”
Not only can professors follow a student’s exact movements and critique the technique, but they can also keep track of how much force is being applied. If a fledgling vet gets too rough and exceeds the number of Newtons considered safe by experienced vets, virtual Bessie will belt out a cautionary “Moo-oo!”
(image credit: Sarah Baillie/Royal Veterinary College)
