高清福利片

Farmers might finally be able to answer the question: How now brown cow?

Research at the University of Sydney has shown that cows maintain individual voices in a variety of emotional situations.

Cows 鈥榯alk鈥� to one another and retain individual identity through their lowing.

高清福利片ing a herd of 18 Holstein-Friesian heifers over five months, PhD student Alexandra Green from the determined that the cows gave individual voice cues in a variety of positive and negative situations. This helps them to maintain contact with the herd and express excitement, arousal, engagement or distress.

The study recorded 333 samples of cow vocalisations and analysed them using acoustic analyses programs with assistance from colleagues in France and Italy. The paper was published this month in .

The conclusion of the research is that farmers should integrate knowledge of individual cow voices into their daily farming practices.

鈥淲e found that cattle vocal individuality is relatively stable across different emotionally loaded farming contexts,鈥� Ms Green said.

Positive contexts were during oestrus and anticipation of feeding. Negative contexts were when cows were denied feed access and during physical and visual isolation from the rest of the herd.

鈥淲e hope that through gaining knowledge of these vocalisations, farmers will be able to tune into the emotional state of their cattle, improving animal welfare,鈥� Ms Green said.

She said that by understanding these vocal characteristics, farmers will be able to recognise individual animals in the herd that might require individual attention.

鈥淎li鈥檚 research is truly inspired. It is like she is building a Google translate for cows,鈥� said聽, Ms Green鈥檚 academic supervisor.

It was previously known that cattle mothers and offspring could communicate by maintaining individuality in their lowing. Ms Green鈥檚 research confirms that cows maintain this individual voicing through their lives and across a herd.

鈥淐ows are gregarious, social animals. In one sense it isn鈥檛 surprising they assert their individual identity throughout their life and not just during mother-calf imprinting,鈥� Ms Green said. 鈥淏ut this is the first time we have been able to analyse voice to have conclusive evidence of this trait.鈥�

Ms Green travelled to Saint-Etienne, France, to work with some of the best bioacousticians in the world, including co-authors Professor David Reby and Dr Livio Favaro, to analyse the vocal traits of the cattle.

The study will be incorporated into her doctorate, which investigates cattle vocal communication and use in welfare assessment on dairy farms.

Declaration

Alexandra Green was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. This research was partially supported by the University of Lyon IDEXLYON project as part of the 鈥淧rogramme Investissements d鈥橝venir鈥� (ANR-16-IDEX-0005), the Labex CeLyA, the Institut universitaire de France (NM), the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and the University of Lyon/Saint-Etienne.