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Animal Behaviour Specialists Map Out the Social Networks of Cows
KentuckyFC writes In a classic The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, a group of cows stand on two legs chatting by the side of a road when a lookout shouts "car". The cows immediately drop to a four-legged stance as the car passes by and return to their usual position and continue chatting when it has gone. Now a team of animal behavior specialists have discovered that the social lives of cattle are more complex than biologists had ever imagined (although not quite into Larson territory). These guys attached RFID tags to 70 Holstein-Fresian calves kept in three pens. They then monitored the position of each cow for a week to see which other animals they tended to have contact with. This allowed them to construct the social network for the cows with unprecedented detail. It turns out these social networks have many of the properties of human social networks. Cows have preferred partners who they tend to spend more time with and 60 per cent of their contacts occur during feeding which amounts to only 6 per cent of their time. The work has important applications. It should help biologists more accurately model how disease spreads through herds of cattle and therefore better understand how to tackle epidemics.
I object to the idea that humans are anything like cows. In fact, we're more like sheep, which are easier to herd, hairier, and generally taste worse than beef does.
I see an IPO on the horizon..
Coming from a ranching family, this is old news. In those circles, its common knowledge that cows have 'buddies' who they spend most of their time with. It actually becomes useful to the rancher to be aware of such things. First, most cattle are tagged with an ear tag with a number to aid in logging sickness, vaccinations, pregnancy etc. Now, because cattle have "Friends" My dad has pointed out times where he realized that when he saw cow #1, it was always with cow #2. If he saw either cow #2 or cow #1 alone, it was a likely indicator that something was wrong with the other cow, as it was unable to keep up with its friend. Things like this have been understood and useful to the people who deal with livestock, probably since the dawn if domestication.
So this is the next frontier in social networking? Farmville is so human, the next killer app is cow clicker.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Cows have best friends.
Summation 2
Moo, moo, moooo *snort* mooo!
My cow friend just wanted to weigh in on this article as well. He finds the finding unsurprising and obvious.
Human social networks have characteristics of bovine social networks.
Although my first guess would have been sheep rather than cattle.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I realize that this is likely a rhetorical question, but the answer would be to have a lot of offspring. Typically, the higher the cost to have offspring, the more care will be given to said offspring.
Also, I don't see what the connection is between emotions and eating meat. Sentience doesn't magically make something taste bad. Adult humans allegedly taste more or less like pork.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Look out...Here comes Zuckercud pitching his cowbook idea again!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Not all animal species care for their young. Some species of sea turtles, for example, bury their eggs and then leave. The eggs hatch, the turtles crawl to the sea, and begin their life. The parents aren't around at all. Thanks to our species' typical behavior (parents raising their children) we can sometimes think this is the only way it can be, but there are many different parenting models in the animal kingdom.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
How do they know when it's going to rain?
They always lie down before it rains... are the cows hooked in to NOAA? Or, is that where AccuWeather gets that "probability of precipitation" number?
...is what the ad revenue looks like on RuminantBook.
If you've ever spent any time with a head of cows, this would be pretty obvious.
They are countless examples of "pretty obvious" things that turned out not to be true.
Your experience, for example, could be down to confirmation bias, for all any outsider might know.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Also quantifying said obvious thing can make it much more useful.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Cow Clicker is dead. Let's get the milk and the butter, make chocolate and dough, and play Cookie Clicker.
I agree. Almost any farmer or rancher can attest to this behavior. My uncle was a farmer who raised cattle, and I spent a great deal of time at the farm with my cousin who was the same age. My uncle would typically have about 60-70 head at any given time and he pretty well know each one as an individual. Their behavior, such as who they "hung out" with, and so on, would give him clues to how they were faring; such as if an individual was sick, pregnant, or in some kind of distress.
Nevertheless, I understand the need for scientists to want to get real numbers on this sort of thing for the sake of understanding behavior better. It's just that articles read like this is new and surprising information.
Proverbs 21:19
"It should help biologists more accurately model how disease spreads through herds of cattle and therefore better understand how to tackle epidemics."
For me, it would be 'it should give people second thought on what we're doing to our fellow earthlings'.
Which is why I suggest you question a number of people who are experienced with cattle and not take my word for it.
Then I'm just taking x number of peoples' words for it instead of just one.
If you are careful about how you ask your questions, I'm sure you can avoid any problems with confirmation bias...
That sounds harder - and is certainly more subjective - than tagging up 70 cows and crunching the numbers with a computer.
"60 per cent of their contacts occur during feeding which amounts to only 6 per cent of their time."
I'm not sure you'd have got very close to uncovering those numbers no matter how many careful questions you asked of how many farmers.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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Oh bull..... Why do you need a GPS collar to figure this out?
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To turn common knowledge into science.
I assume the scientists new about this behaviour before they started their work. Now other scientists can use this work as a basis for more advanced research, for example detecting if cows are happy by monitoring their social behaviour. Farmers already use this technique, but by turning it into science you might be able to compare the happiness of cows in different situations, at different times or on farms across the globe. One might even teach a computer to use this knowledge.
How about privacy? If cows are social beings, shouldn't they have privacy? Do we need a Snowden to make the cows aware of the extensive monitoring they are subjected to?
It's not surprising that herds of cows have a social structure. They're herd animals. It may be hard to see in a feeding pen situation without this kind of tracking, but when they have a lot of room to move around, groups form. It's a bit harder to see this in a group of uniformly bred dairy cattle, though.
Horse herd social structure is well understood. There are buddies, little groups, and an overall hierarchy. If you want to see the hierarchy, set out food buckets, one at a time, and see who eats first. The order will usually be the same each time you do this.
Even chickens have a "pecking order".
Why do you need a GPS collar to figure this out?
Did you physically watch your cows w/o interruption 24/7? Obvious by simple observation is incomplete information. An actual study need more.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Oh bull..... Why do you need a GPS collar to figure this out?
You don't need the tracking system to figure it out... you need it to measure how much time they spend together, whether besides having a buddy they also form groups, how often they interact with their group or with random cows, etc. With these numbers they can model the spread of various diseases, how cow health changes their interactions, how feeding system changes cow socialization (that will need a similar study with a different feeding system), and perhaps other things. Also they can verify that it wasn't a confirmation bias "discovery".
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways