Singing Until The Cows Come Home
Posted July 7, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
You could wait until the cows come home.
Or you could prompt them home with noises, if you know what they like to hear.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been conducting research to find out what sounds could attract the wanderers back to the barn.
The team has developed a device that attaches to a cow’s head and acts as a sort of virtual fence and cow herder all-in-one. It’s similar to dog shock collars that have been around for years, to keep Fido in the yard without unsightly fences. The “Ear-A-Round” also uses a different type of stimulus – sound.
Researchers have tried shouts and scary noises (like helicopters and horns) as well as shocks on the ear opposite to the direction the cows are meant to go. In effect, it’s to scare the herd home.
But they’ve also tried a different tack: they’ve recorded traditional cowboys’ songs and played them at 30-second intervals into the beasts’ ears. They tried this hoping that the cows would recognize the crooning as meaning meal time. Researchers claim that this method has seen preliminary success in herding the animals remotely.
Those of us who have a cat understand this technology perfectly. They seem to know the sound of a can of food and come promptly – even if they’re not generally obedient.
