05/12/06 Cow`s ears part two

Cow's Ears II Just which sounds upset cattle while they are being processed in working facilities. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back right after this with some conclusions from an experiment. Dr. Jon Watts an animal behavior research associate in University of Saskatchewan's Western College of Veterinary Medicine wanted to find out how much stress was put on cattle from the noise of working them in handling facilities. Dr. Watts' team recorded the noises of the metal chutes and alleys then recorded the voices of people as they pretended to move cattle through a working facility. The two tapes were taken to the university's recording studio and edited to have the same volume and made one tape of the two sounds mixed together. One half of a group of beef heifers were individually exposed to the mixture of mechanical and human vocals while wireless telemetry measured their heart rate and a platform recorded their physical activity. The other half of the group was exposed to a period of silence in the same site. The test was conducted for five consecutive days. As expected the noise group had elevated heart rates and movement. Through a series of additional experiments, Dr. Watts concluded mechanical noise was less upsetting to cattle than any intensity level of human voices. He feels human behavior is more of a factor in handling cattle than cattle genetics, weather, or previous experiences. If that's the case, why does only one cow try to climb out of the chute during my version of "Oh Pretty Woman?" We definitely need more tests. I'm Jeff Keane. Beef April 2006