Researchers Have Witnessed Impressive Results When Cows Were Potty Trained To Save The Environment

Greenhouse gas has known to destroy the planet, and this can come from the feces and urine of animals. That’s why researchers have searched for ways to contain waste. But can potty training farm animals work? Is it possible?

All our lives, we’ve seen house pets such as dogs and cats get trained properly. No one has even attempted to do this to a cow. That is, up until now. Researchers may now have found a method to contain dangerous substances, and this starts with the animals that emit them.

NDTV

Cows often move around freely when they’re on the farm. They graze where they can and relieve themselves any time the urge comes. However, the urine and feces accumulation and spread of waste can contaminate the soil and waterways nearby. This has been a problem for many farms and the only way this can be controlled is by confining the cows in barns. However, their urine and feces combine to create ammonia in such close quarters. This has been an indirect contributor to greenhouse with the gas emitted. An article was published on September 13 in the journal Current Biology, and in it, the researchers prove to the others that cows can actually be potty-trained. When this happens, this enables waste to be collected and treated properly. And when done properly, this cleans up the barn, reduces air pollution, and creates a more open, animal-friendly farms.

Co-author Jan Langbein, an animal psychologist at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Germany, spoke about this and said, “It’s usually assumed that cattle are not capable of controlling defecation or urination.” He and his team of like-minded individuals have started to question this way of thinking. He said, “Cattle, like many other animals or farm animals are quite clever and they can learn a lot. Why shouldn’t they be able to learn how to use a toilet?”


In order to properly potty-train the calves, they went through a process they aptly named MooLoo training. The research team with scientists from FBN, FLI (Germany) and the University of Auckland (New Zealand) looked into working backwards in order to make this possible. They started off the project by giving a reward to the calves who urinated in the latrine. After which, they allowed the calves to approach the latrines from the outside when they needed to relieve themselves.

While the ammonia produced in cow dung and urine doesn’t directly contribute to climate change, the microbes found in it are converted into nitrous oxide when these are leached into the soil. And as many are aware, the nitrous oxide is the third-most important greenhouse gas. This comes closely after methane and carbon dioxide. Reality is, agriculture is the largest source of ammonia emissions, and the livestock farming portion of it makes up over 50 perfect of that contribution.

“You have to try to include the animals in the process and train the animals to follow what they should learn,” said Langbein. “We guessed it should be possible to train the animals, but to what extent we didn’t know.” To encourage the cows for latrine use, the researchers wanted the calves to link their urination experience outside with an unpleasant experience. Hence, they set up a form of punishment for this. “As a punishment we first used in-ear headphones and we played a very nasty sound whenever they urinated outside,” said Langbein. “We thought this would punish the animals—not too aversively—but they didn’t care. Ultimately, a splash of water worked well as a gentle deterrent.” Hence, this concerned with cruelty, need not feel too badly about what the calves went through.

Good News Network

Over the course of several weeks, the research team were able to successfully train a total of 11 out of the total 16 calves involved in the experiment. More of the details were published in Current Biology.

The researchers were impressed with the results they witnessed as the calves showed a level of performance that is comparable to that of human children and superior to that of very young children.


Langbein now is optimistic with the fact that with more training, the success rate can be further pushed forward. He shared, “After ten, fifteen, twenty years of researching with cattle, we know that animals have a personality, and they handle different things in a different way. They are not all the same.”

It is safe to say that the researchers know how to potty-train cows now. They want to apply the remarkable results into real cattle housing and to outdoor systems. Langbein hopes that “in a few years all cows will go to a toilet,” he said. More importantly, this small step may actually make big changes in climate change, especially when it comes to the greenhouse gasses.

 

What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!

True Activist / Report a typo

Popular on True Activist