happy farm-animals…
…in Southern Norway…
how do we know they're happy…
Knowing if someone is happy and/or sad, or if the mind is occupied by other feelings, requires knowledge about the mechanisms involved.
about: animal welfare on our farm.
Our animals work and provide for us, and share our local environment. It is therefore our responsibility to provide for and protect them. This means we have to be sensitive to their state of mind, and communicate with them in all ways possible, as with all intelligent beings.
As with humans: knowledge about cows' state of mind can only be acquired through observations. The observer also definitely need empathic qualities, an eye for the smallest of details, loads of common sense and the right attitude.
For observations to make sense: the observer has to be accepted as a natural, positive or neutral, part of the animals' environment. Making close-up observations without affecting the observed animals, is literally impossible.
Each individual animal also has to be observed, and treated, with respect for its individual qualities, its place or ranking in the herd, and its normal, acquired and inherited, behavior. Individualism is at least as prevalent amongst cows as amongst humans, since a cow pushes its own interests by balancing individualism and group-membership from situation to situation through her entire life – just like humans.
Respecting a cow's private sphere, or space, is extremely important. The outer limit of such a private sphere can be from 10 meters (30 feet) down to 1 meter (3 feet) away from the individual animal, and animals send signals when one gets too close. One should only enter a cow's private sphere when one is invited – by the cow.
some good signs…
Any somewhat alert human can acquire the necessary knowledge and qualities for observing animals' well-being and state of mind, through daily contact with animals over years. There's no other reliable recipe, although collecting knowledge through existing sources can help speed things up.
There are some general signs we can look for.
- A relaxed state combined with alertness, is usually a positive sign, indicating that life there and then is good seen from the cow's point of view.
- Confident and calm reactions to human activity in their surroundings, indicates that the cow has a positive impression of humans and like having us around.
- A playful cow is definitely full of positive energy, and happy with life. 550 kilo (1200 lbs) of playful cow better be given space though, as that amount of living weight in motion can easily kill a man.
Confidence is sign of a generally happy cow. A confident cow speaks up about whatever she thinks is good or bad, and trust us humans to fix things in her favor if she can't do it herself.
Confidence is also what experienced farmers make use of in order to control and handle these large, heavy and strong animals without using force or risk getting hurt. Confident animals are likely to do what we tell them – without asking too many questions or protesting too much.
However, we have to take care not to break their confidence in us, if we want to keep this control. It is very much a two-way relationship, based on trust.
Cows like stable environments and timely routines, with plenty of good food, enough to drink and good places to rest. Cows also love changes and challenges from time to time, as they can become extremely bored with too fixed routines in a too fixed environment.
be aware…
Cows have very direct ways of showing what's on their mind. However, they don't sense the world as we humans do, and react on factors that has little or no meaning to humans.
As a consequence: a cow's signals are easily misinterpreted by well-meaning but inexperienced people. We have to interpret both the cow's environment and her signals correctly, or else we'll inevitably draw the wrong conclusions and/or react in ways we shouldn't.
half a ton in aimless motion.
A cow can be scared by simple things, like a sudden shift in light and darkness in her surroundings. Her natural instinct tells her to flee from what she doesn't understand, and simply dropping a white paper down in front of a dark background can make the most confident cow run like crazy and break down everything in her path.
Well, we should know what can happen when humans get scared and try to flee. The higher the number of humans, the higher the scare-factor and more aimless the flight becomes. Same with cows, and with each cow weighing more than half a ton it's just one way to avoid getting hurt: get out of the way.
fear is infectious.
People who are fearful of big cows, shouldn't approach them. It is not that a cow is particularly dangerous to fearful humans, but fear is infectious and may lead to unpredictable behavior both in humans and in cows.
A cow is extremely powerful and quick, and can deliver deadly kicks when startled, in pain, or because she simply doesn't like what's going on. Anyone within 1½ meter (5 feet) of a cow's hind legs is inside the kill-zone – literally. That's a dairy-farmer's workspace, in case you didn't know.
Correct ID is important, and ID cards don't work.
A change of clothes is enough to turn the farmer a cow has known from the day she was born, into a stranger or potentially dangerous intruder. Recognizing the farmer's voice is enough to calm her down, but she may want to check identity by smelling the farmer's hands before being totally convinced she's being approached by the right person.
health-problems…
Since health and happiness are closely linked, a cow's mood-change may be the first, and sometimes the only, signal we can pick up about something being seriously wrong, making us able to react correctly and in time.
A person who knows the animals well and has the right attitude, may be able to sense minor abnormalities within a large herd just by passing by and/or during ordinary routines. Others may miss pretty clear signs altogether, or misinterpret them.
- Constant high level of alertness is sign of insecurity – the cow sense danger and doesn't trust anyone.
- Constant lack of alertness is sign of hopelessness – the cow has given up and lost her will to live.
Factors in the environment and/or medical conditions can cause such negative states of mind in a cow, so we who deal with these animals daily have to be sensitive to any such signs. Spending time with, caring for and encouraging an animal in distress, may act as a miracle cure.
Cows can appear to have an extremely high tolerance for pain, in that they instinctively hide any weakness that can be used against them by competitors or natural predators. We have to pay attention to the minutest behavioral changes in order to spot problems.
A cow may expose her problem for a person she really trust, and ask for help. She may at the same time try to avoid exposing anything to others – as her instict tells her. This means two people may not be able to spot the same problem without giving the animal a thorough examination.
Did I mention that cows are intelligent beings? Humans sure got something to prove here.
stupid cow…
Sorry about that headline, as there isn't such a thing as a stupid cow. Stupidity may be evenly distrubuted amongst humans, but it hasn't spread to cattle yet.
Sure, cows may have problems understanding what humans want, when given two or more contradictary and confusing messages at once. Cows may also not cooperate well with humans who clearly are there for the sole purpose of hurting them. How stupid can a human become?
Yes, cows may behave as if they are stupid, when humans mislead and/or mistreat them and prevent them from making wise decisions on their own terms. That's often the case, but one cannot blame the cows for that.
History is full of such cases, and fresh examples can be seen every day all over the world – with only humans to blame. Must be a defunct gene or something, and we better keep it to ourselves.
shocking observations…
There are plenty of stories about people who enters an animal's private sphere, provoking and scaring the animal without having the slightest idea why what they're doing have such effects, and thereafter blame the animal's reaction on the owner's cruelty and lack of animal welfare. Shocking – that such foolish and ignorant people are allowed to get anywhere near animals.
It is vital to keep all kinds of foolishness out of the picture. Foolishness obscures real cruelty to animals – which do take place, and keep such cases from public view, courts or wherever else they belong.
Some people seem to have turned foolishness into a virtue, creating hobbies and even jobs out of applying nonsense. Serious people may choose to ignore the nonsense for a while, but dedicated fools do have a degenerative effect on whatever they deal with and the societies they live in.
Humans have replaced most of their natural instincts with what they call “rational thinking”, which is only positive when based on broad and solid understanding – something that's not often the case in this context. People have to understand their own lost instincts, and learn about the very much intact natural instincts of the animals they're dealing with.
Collecting and sorting knowledge and turning it all into real understanding, takes time and dedication. However, humans must go through such a process if they ever want to have positive effects on the lives of animals and other intelligent beings – themselves not excluded.
small herds vs. large ones…
Can one have the same contact and relationships with individual animals in large herds of many hundred cows as in small ones? No, I don't think that's possible. However, if humans are accepted as leaders and protectors by the animals, then one can get really good contact almost regardless of herd size.
I'm not for keeping large herds of animals, as it is too easy to ignore the animals altogether and turn it all into a matter of mass-production. However, that's how it's done many places around the world, and there are no technical or natural laws that say animals can't be just as happy in large herds under the right conditions.
There are however plenty of true horror-stories that show how miserable conditions many animals may have to live, and die, under when careless humans are in charge. Makes me wonder if such humans can be put in charge of anything but a shovel for digging their own graves – really.
Instead of looking at numbers in bank-accounts and mechanisms for making those numbers grow faster, one should look at numbers in nature and mechanisms for balanced management. Nature will eventually reach its own balance, regardless of the effect it may have on bank-accounts.
living with nature…
One can harvest nature but not harness it – something animals still have the ability, the instincts, to understand. Nature changes, challenges and evaluates all factors constantly, and doesn't respect any man made decision or restriction. That's what makes nature so complex, unpredictable and interesting, and those who live in it, and by it, so happy.
Happiness is mainly about having long term security and lack of stress in an inspiring environment. What we can provide our farm-animals, is a relative high-security and low-stress, mostly natural, environment. All signs indicate that our cows are quite content and happy with what we are providing – most of the time. They sure tell us if they're not, and we are listening.
sincerely
Hageland 23.oct.2007
last rev: 06.des.2007
happy farm-animals…