UNITED KINGDOM, March 4, 2013 (Scientist Live): A cow with a name produces more milk than one without, scientists at Newcastle University have found. Drs. Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson have shown that by giving a cow a name and treating her as an individual, farmers can increase their annual milk yield by almost 500 pints. The study, published online in the academic journal Anthrozoos, found that on farms where each cow was called by her name the overall milk yield was higher than on farms where the cattle were herded as a group.
The findings are part of a larger study examining the impact of a pleasant relationship between human and cow. Dr. Douglas used to be a nutritional adviser to dairy farmers so has seen hundreds of farmers, farms and their herds of cows. There were differences in how the farmers behaved around their cows, and how the cows behaved around humans (friendly/fearful). The study at Newcastle University was designed to see if these differences in how cows feel around humans would actually translate into genuine measurable differences in welfare, behaviour and milk production.
Many studies with other animals had found that reducing fear could improve fertility, growth rates, immune response (disease resistance) and improve the ease with which they could be handled. Researchers said, “We did not want to provoke fear in our experimental herd, instead we wanted to see if, by improving the relationship with humans (so cows liked human company), we would see improvements in welfare, behaviour and production. The welfare would obviously be good for the cow, better behaviour means they are easier to manage and milk, obviously less stressful for the milker and any benefit in production would obviously be good for the farmer.”
More at “source” above.