2dayuk
June 26, 2001
Dairy cows produce more milk when listening to soothing classical music than they do when they are played heavy rock a survey has revealed.
Cattle prefer Beethoven to the Beetles and are far more productive when they are played slow music.
Boffins at the University of Leicester's music research department played a 1,000 strong herd of Holstein Friesian cows different types of music.
Cattle that were played Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and REM's Everybody Hurts produced 0.73 litres more a day than when they listened to the Beatles 'Back in the USSR'.
The study was carried out over a nine week period by music research specialists Adrian North and Liam MacKenzie.
They held the trials at Dairies in Lincolnshire where they played the cows music 12 hours a day from 5am to 5pm on stereos.
Dr North said: "These results are statistically significant, they reveal that milk yields could be increased by three per cent by playing certain types of music to cows.
"We have found that cows respond to a pleasant auditory environment by producing more milk.
"It seems that slow music had the effect of alleviating stress and relaxing the animals which resulted in greater milk yields."
Liam MacKenzie added that cattle reacted to different types of music in much the same way as humans do.
He said: "There is evidence of some farmers already playing music to cows and there is evidence to suggest that playing music reduces stress with poultry."
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