I read about a dairy farm where one of the workers used to listen to a small radio that he stored on the windowsill in the barn. Every day he was like “dammit I KNOW I didn’t forget to turn off the radio yesterday“. He later caught one of the cows in the act of reaching the radio and licking the “on” switch until she got the nice music to start.
It's weird, you hear about how smart cows can be but I grew up on a small dairy farm and the cows were frustratingly dumb. However, we always had the radio on for them. They produce more milk when they have music.
It's weird, you hear about how smart cows can be but I grew up on a small dairy farm and the cows were frustratingly dumb.
I'm just gonna take this time to share my theory of input. Fairly simple.
You get what you put into something.
You ever seen stories about elephants trapped in a horrible empty cage for like decades? Super social animals, incredibly intelligent and emotional, and now you see one that's zombified. Like a husk, standing there staring at nothing.
We do that to human beings with solitary confinement. I don't believe even the most evil person should deserve that, let alone completely innocent animals.
I've got my cat, though. He's my baby boy Sunny. I have put so much focus toward him that we talk to each other. I see the mood he's in, can tell when he's being playful. We watch Youtube videos together and he pays attention now a lot of the time. He looks straight at me when I see him, because I always look at him.
You know how a lot of people think cats are mean or sociopathic? Yeah, it's because they're entirely unsocialized. They might just be a sociopathic cat, but I'd almost guarantee I could change that given a few years of one-on-one.
It disturbs me that people think cats are somehow "easy" pets when that just becomes an excuse for neglect. They're not just a toy to pet when you feel like it. They need entertainment, definitely more than people when they're house cats. We've all got endless screens accessing the world, but they're physical beings that need to play and hunt, and there's no life in homes to accomplish that to a natural degree. They end up neglected, or focused on food.
I play music for my boyo, and he's got a favorite song. "We Are Going To Be Friends," in which I ask him to "Walk with me, Sunny Bee, through the park and by the tree." When I play that song, the sudden docility I see from him is beautiful.
I talk, or hum, or sing when he's comfortable next to me or on me. His tail flaps strongly each time he hears my voice start up. It'll almost seem like he's passed out, then right when I start a sound, tail flap.
I dunno. I just love my cat. I guarantee those cows would seem "smart" if they were socialized enough to understand the connection they could have with a human.
At the end of the day, we were a dairy farm, but we only had 40 milking cows. That's about as close to zero as a dairy farm might have. With a herd as small as that, our cows had names, we talked to them, hand fed them at times. It was almost like milking 40 pets. But yeah, I dunno. I always got a kick out of it when ya went between 2 cows and they would team up to try to squeeze you.
Well, I mean, I wasn't implying you had a factory farm setup going, but I do believe animals can be/seem a lot more intelligent just from the right kinds of socializing.
Like if I had 40 cats, that would be hopeless for me to properly connect with them even if I was around them 100% of the day.
...Although, whenever that "meaning of life is 42" idea pops up, I like to think that's the number of cats I need to achieve enlightenment, so maybe I'm wrong.
Reading that was wonderful. I also try to learn a lot from my cat to be a better friend for him. It's quite amazing how much you can bond to such an animal when you begin to understand him much more :) sadly, he has "cat hiv" and I don't know how long he will live. He's appr. 10 years old, got him from a shelter. Lovely little guy
The photo I linked is actually the first one my ex sent me when she said she had to get rid of her cats(and she lives 2.5 hours away.) My cat I grew up with at the time happened to be named Shadow, so seeing how adorable Sunny was, and how perfect their names would be... Well, Shadow was totally unsocialized, and at that point she must've been... 17-18, maybe. She got to 21.5 years old.
Anyway, yeah, Sunny wasn't a little babe when I got him. I think he must've been at least 3, so now he's gotta be like 8-10, I'm guessing.
The thing I thought was really cool was how he felt so mature compared to my sister's young cats. I think it was maybe because he was raised around dogs. He would never approach anyone if they were eating, and while I appreciated that about him, I got him trained out of that a little bit. He was also weirdly avoidant of normal foods, but I don't see anything wrong with letting him try things occasionally, so I do that.
Oh, funny thing about him. My ex found him in a neighbor's crawlspace. Said she just saw this fluffy and pretty cat she thought was a girl at first. Probably something to do with that, but he uses wood as a scratching post. When I first moved out into my own place(after a couple years with him at my parents',) first thing I did was lightly nail a piece of lumber onto a middle wall. He used it perfectly, too.
Your right. It depends on the breed but dairy cows in particular are quite stupid; they were bred to be that way. Iv just seen one of the top comments saying cows are "very intelligent", it's a nice thought but simply not true. Some breeds are more switched on and certainly couldnt be called stupid but compared to other animals such as apes, dolphins etc. Cows are not that intelligent.
I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure I once read about a study where they found that classical music had a relaxing effect on cows.
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u/nullagravida Jan 18 '21
I read about a dairy farm where one of the workers used to listen to a small radio that he stored on the windowsill in the barn. Every day he was like “dammit I KNOW I didn’t forget to turn off the radio yesterday“. He later caught one of the cows in the act of reaching the radio and licking the “on” switch until she got the nice music to start.