Bioacoustic tools for enhancing animal management and productivity: effects of recorded calf vocalizations on milk production in dairy cows

Talking to Cows: Reactions to Different Auditory Stimuli During Gentle Human-Animal Interactions

“…Furthermore, the mismatch of experimenter and playback voice did not have a significant effect on any of the behaviors. Indeed, there is a substantial amount of literature in different species indicating that they do not necessarily distinguish playback from live auditory stimuli: playback is used successfully in studies investigating bird behavior (Douglas and Mennill, 2010 ), dogs react to dog-directed human speech played back from a loudspeaker (Ben-Aderet et al, 2017 ; Benjamin and Slocombe, 2018 ), and dairy cows increase their production when exposed to a playback of calf vocalizations (Pollock and Hurnik, 1978 ; McCowan et al, 2002 ; no effect if calves are reared with their mothers: Zipp et al, 2013 ). Other characteristics of speech might thus have a stronger impact on the animals' behavior than the characteristics induced by the type of source.…”

“…Using playback of recordings facilitates the repeated presentation of auditory stimuli and might be useful for simplification of experimental designs (Watts and Stookey, 2000 ). There is evidence that calves recognize recorded samples of their mother's calls (Barfield et al, 1994 ), and the playback of recorded calls of calves stimulated milk production in cows (Pollock and Hurnik, 1978 ; McCowan et al, 2002 ) and lowered their heart rate (Zipp et al, 2014 ). The playback of a recording of gentle talking over a loudspeaker could increase standardization while retaining a natural speech melody.…”

Behavioral and Physiological Influences of Listening Slow and Fast Music on Milking Buffaloes

“…Soothing noise is stimulating and relaxing for cows which caused them to increase their milk production (McCowan, et al, 2002). It has been found that slow music increased daily milk yield in cows by 3% (Nold, 2007).…”

“…It has been shown that noise is a stressor in cattle (Forsling et al, 1984;Elridge, 1988;Francesco et al, 1990;Arave et al, 1991;Grandin, 1996 andWaynert et al, 1999). Soothing noise is stimulating and relaxing for cows which caused them to increase their milk production (McCowan, et al, 2002).…”

Music- A Nonchemical Method of Milk Production Enhancement in Dairy Cattle

“…Music when scientifically applied has been shown to relieve human suffering (Landreth et al, 1974 andWillard et al, 1952). Literature revealed that most of the work that has been conducted in animals are on the adoption behavior of dairy animals with Automatic milking system (AMS) (Uetake et al, 1997), the behavioral and physiological response of dairy heifers to taperecorded milking facility noise with and without a pre-treatment adaptation phase (Arnold et al, 2007), Bioacoustics tools for enhancing animal management and productivity (McCowan et al, 2002).…”