Posted on 02/28/2005 8:03:26 AM PST by yankeedame
Cows hold grudges, say scientists
By Jonathan Leake
February 28, 2005
ONCE they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges, researchers have found.
Cows are capable of strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.
The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats and chickens. They suggest such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be reconsidered.
The research will be presented to a conference in London next month sponsored by animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming.
Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Britain's Bristol University, said even chickens might have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.
"Remarkable cognitive abilities and cultural innovations have been revealed," she said. "Our challenge is to teach others that every animal we intend to eat or use is a complex individual, and to adjust our farming culture accordingly."
Her colleague John Webster added: "People have assumed intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer, and that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic."
The Bristol researchers have documented how cows within a herd form friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows, and can bear grudges for months or years.
Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges.
In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves.
"The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment," Professor Broom said.
The assumption that farm animals cannot suffer from conditions that would be intolerable for humans is partly based on the idea they have no sense of self. Latest research suggests this is untrue.
"Sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it," Professor Webster said.
"You only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer's day. Just like humans."
Hillary still won't speak to Ken Starr.
More reasons to fear Hillary.
I'm off for my double-bacon with cheese now...
As long as they keep tasting like steak, they can hold whatever they want.
~Corey
Another sign that Armageddon is near.
I can definitely believe this about pigs, and I suppose it could be true about cows and goats, but I have a serious problem with believing that chickens have complex emotions (having raised chickens, they are some of the stupidest animals on the planet).
Sheesh, no wonder!:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1352194/posts
I wonder if this mans "Cows" have some of those emotions?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1351856/posts
Man Accused of Having Relations With Cows
NEILLSVILLE, Wis. (AP) -- A 63-year-old man is charged with sexual gratification with an animal for allegedly having sex with calves.
Harold G. Hart, of Neillsville, allegedly told police that he routinely stopped at a Greenwood farm, usually after bar closing or on trips to strip clubs near Marshfield or Neillsville.
A criminal complaint filed in Clark County Circuit Court said the farm's owners installed a motion detector on Jan. 22 after regularly seeing footprints and vehicle tracks on their land. Around 4 a.m. the next morning, a sensor sounded and Hart was caught leaving the barn, but Hart allegedly said he just used a bathroom in the barn and had never been there before.
Go to the other thread its a "moot"
"The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment," Professor Broom said.
More likey their 'Food!' moment.
He really was a chicken running around with his head cut off. The e-mail message seemed innocent enough. A reader simply asked "Ever heard of the story posted here at this link?" and offered a hyperlink to another web page. I clicked and came across a story that I was sure had to be pure fiction. The only problem is that the story appears to be totally true.
This is the story about Mike the chicken. Mike, of course, was not your ordinary chicken. No, not ordinary at all. You see, Mike was a headless chicken. If you want to be really specific, Mike was actually a headless Wyandotte rooster.
I should point out that Mike wasn't always a headless bird. In fact, he was born 100% normal, complete with a head (most normal chickens have one of these) in Fruita, Colorado.
On September 10, 1945, Mike's short five-and-a-half month life was about to take a turn for the worse. On this day, Mike received a death sentence. His owners, Lloyd and Clara Olsen, decided that it was time to slaughter a group of birds, some to sell and to prepare others for themselves. Out to the hen house they went…
Watch out Mike!
As you can probably imagine, Mr. Olsen was the one whacking the heads off while Clara plucked and cleaned the birds.
Bash! Down came the ax and off went Mike's head.
Mike's head was surely dead. Mike's body was not.
Now I know what you are thinking - it is well known that chickens will run around frantically when their heads are chopped off. That's probably where that old expression comes from. And, everyone knows that a headless chicken just can't survive more than a few moments.
Apparently, Mike forgot to read the rulebook for playing the game of Life. His head may have been lying on the floor, but he had no problem standing up and strutting around as if nothing had actually happened. The next day, Mike was still flopping around, so Lloyd decided to feed him to see how long he could keep the bird alive. Day after day he continued to gain weight.
Mike could easily balance himself on the highest perches without falling. His crowing consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat. Mike even attempted to preen his feathers with his nonexistent head (apparently he never noticed). It seems that Mike could do just about anything that any other chicken could do, if you exclude all of the functions of his head.
As I'm sure you can imagine, headless chickens are not an everyday event. In the tradition of that famous huckster Barnum, there was money to be made in this oddity. A promoter by the name of Hope Wade came along and convinced Lloyd that Mike would be a big draw in the sideshow circuit. Miracle Mike, as he soon came to be known, toured up and down the West Coast of the United States. Just six weeks after his beheading, Mike was featured in a Life magazine article and his fame grew. For just 25 cents, anyone could pay to get a look at Mike. At the height of his popularity, Mike was raking in a cool $4,500 per month, which was no small potatoes in those days. They probably would have thrown in his head as a bonus - it was stored in a canning jar and toured along with Mike. (Actually, a cat ate Mike’s head. Some other poor chicken’s head was pickled in the jar.)
And, if there was money to be made, there were also copycats. Other people in Mike's hometown began to chop the heads off of their own chickens in an attempt to get in on the scheme. One copycat headless rooster was named Lucky and he managed to live for eleven days before bashing himself into a stovepipe and dying (Lucky wasn't that lucky after all). Several other headless chickens lived for a couple of days.
So how was Mike able to survive? Scientists examined him and determined that Mr. Olsen had not done a very good job at chopping Mike's head off. Most of the head was actually removed, but one ear remained intact. The slice actually missed the jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. Apparently, most of a chicken's reflex actions are located in the brain stem, which was also largely untouched. Mike was also examined by the officers of several humane societies and was declared to have been free from suffering.
Through his open esophagus, Mike was fed a mixture of ground up grain and water with your typical eyedropper. Little bits of gravel were dropped down his throat to help his gizzard grind up the food.
One serious problem that Mike commonly experienced was that he would start to choke on his own mucus. The Olsens came up with the simple solution of using a syringe to suck the mucus out. But, one day tragedy struck. Mike was traveling back home to Fruita and was roosting with the Olsens in their Phoenix motel room. They heard Mike choking in the middle of the night and quickly realized that they had left the syringe at the sideshow the day before. Miracle Mike was no more.
The exact date of Mike’s belated departure from this world was never recorded. Years later, it was estimated, based on Lloyd’s information, that Miracle Mike died in March of 1947. Eighteen months living without a head could be considered a world’s record. Yet, Lloyd didn’t want to admit that he had accidentally killed the bird, so he claimed that he had sold the bird off. This little white lie is the reason that many of the stories printed about Mike claimed that he was still touring the country as late as 1949.
But wait, the story is not over! Mike actually has his own holiday! On May 17, 1999, Mike's hometown of Fruita held the first "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" in honor of one of its most famous citizens. Some of the events included the 5K Run Like a Headless Chicken Race, egg tosses, Pin the Head on the Chicken, the Chicken Cluck-Off, and the classic Chicken Dance. The food offerings included - you guessed it - chicken, chicken salad, and the like. Let's not forget the great game of Chicken Bingo in which the numbers were chosen by where chicken droppings fell on a numbered grid.
If you are interested, Mike the Headless Chicken Day is an annual event. As peculiar as it is to describe, it actually sounds like a great time. And it’s all done in celebration of the life of one lucky bird named Miracle Mike.
Useless? Useful? I'll leave that for you to decide.
Cows hold grudges?
Rosie O'D?
Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges.
Maybe it's just me but I think the cows are excited about the sweet cakes they smell behind behind Door #2.
Excellent news for NOW...
..that was good timing for that post, a moooving experience. How do you want that burger...no "special" sauce questions. :^)
I gotta know... Do happy cows taste better?
Well, this study seems to explain Maureen Dowd and Susan Estrich.
There's the money shot!
That is as far as I got before I spit up on the keyboard!:-)
That line right there is what worries me the most. The wackos will latch onto that one and BOOM I wake up one morning and my cats qualify for food stamps.
Eewwww... information I didn't need.
Are these the same cows that will die of thirst while standing hip-deep in snow? They must be the ones that one news article described as "watching on in horror as workers try to rescue one stuck in the mud"
YankeeDame:
That's a cute cartoon.
So these "scientists" have finally figured out what anyone who deals with animals for years already knows?
Llamas certainly hold grudges. ( some are REALLY good at it!) They also express fear, anxiety, personal affection, and many have a mischievious sense of humor.
Where's my grant? LOL!
For the rest of you guys:
4-H ping!
Mental note: Next time set dryer to fluff.
Your evil TS. :)
Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Britain's Bristol University, said even chickens might have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.
I could have predicted that before the research began!
Who funded the "research"?
Flowers also turn to face the Sun.
Don't know about cows but horses do for sure!
So NOW we know the reasons for those awful NAG HAG faces! (No Helen Thomas pics, please!)
I can see llamas, cows, goats, and pigs..........but chickens???????? they've GOT to be kidding?
which reminds me, I need to pull some emotionally distraught chicken out of the freezer for dinner...........cluckle, cluckle.
You beat me to it. The guy should be forced to marry the cow he had sex with after all trifling with the emotions of a cow is serious business.
All kidding aside this guy is no sicker than any fruit who want sex with the same gender.
If anyone saw "Little Yellow Jacket " 3 time bucking bull of the year yesterday, being ridden for 8 seconds on the Pro Bull Riders tour, they would see this in action. Usually when he bucks off the rider he just stops, gives a dismissive look to the poor guy on the ground and then exits the arena. But when he got ridden yesterday he galloped around the arena avoiding efforts to get him to exit, as if to issue a request for a reride. This bull is smart!... and maybe didn't want to go back to face the other bulls?
Naw. The way I see it if God didn't want us to eat animals He wouldn't have given us BBQ sauce.
Boy howdy, I'll say cows hold grudges. It was about 27 years ago, a Friday night. There were 3 of us, a case of Budweiser, a cow pasture and a full moon...
When we start paying for all those pet psychics and grief counselors, the price of chicken will go through the roof. We are entering the era of the eight dollar egg.
Not only do cows hold grudges but don't some folks (in India) believe that cows are our relatives, like dead relatives. Instead of going home to heaven to be with God, you become a cow. That's what may be behind this "cow's got feelings" stuff, they don't want us eating their dead relatives. It just might become part of someone's new tolerance bill somewhere on this crazy mixed up global planet, The "Don't Eat The Relatives Initiative" or something, all for world peace of course.
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