How cows use their unique voices to cowmoooonicate

For five months, University of Sydney PhD student Alexandra Green spent time in the field, literally, with 18 Holstein-Friesian heifers, recording and studying their sounds. While it's been known that cow moms and calves use unique vocalizations with one another, Green confirmed that cattle "also maintain individual voices in a variety of emotional situations," from chow time to periods when they are isolated from the others in the herd. From the University of Sydney:

Cows talk to one another and retain individual identity through their lowing...

The conclusion of the research is that farmers should integrate knowledge of individual cow voices into their daily farming practices.

We found that cattle vocal individuality is relatively stable across different emotionally loaded farming contexts, Ms Green said...

We hope that through gaining knowledge of these vocalisations, farmers will be able to tune into the emotional state of their cattle, improving animal welfare, Ms Green said.

"Vocal individuality of Holstein-Friesian cattle is maintained across putatively positive and negative farming contexts" (Scientific Reports via Atlas Obscura)

image: Lynne Gardner/University of Sydney

(Thanks to University of Sydney for inspiring the headline!)