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British scientists to study how cows make
friends!
Tuesday July 31, 2012 12:02:49 AM,
IANS
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London: Cows have
attracted the curiosity of British scientists as to how they make
friends among themselves.
In a three-year study, funded by the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and DairyCo, the levy-funded
organisation that works on behalf of British dairy farmers,
scientists will try to understand more about "social networking"
within dairy herds.
They aim to help farmers improve the health and welfare of their
cows, thereby increasing milk yields, Daily Mail reported.
High-tech proximity collars have been fitted to cows on a farm in
Cullompton, Devon county for the research's first stage. These
collars use radio signals to determine how close one cow is to
another, allowing scientists to map the animals' social
interactions.
Study leader Darren Croft, from the University of Exeter's Animal
Behaviour Research Group, said: "Emerging evidence on wild animal
populations supports the idea that the group structure and
relationships between the animals affect their health and
wellbeing.
"Cows are social animals that form important group structures, and
the addition or removal of animals from an established group can
significantly alter its dynamics."
"We want to find out just how important these group structures
are. Dairy farmers take a range of factors into account when
deciding how to structure groups of cows. We hope that the results
of our study may contribute towards a blueprint for herd
management to help farmers continue to improve the health and
welfare of their cows," said Croft.
"We will look at the nature of the interactions to see just how
relationships are formed and maintained within the herd," said
another researcher, Natasha Boyland.
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