Understanding cow behaviour plays an important role in managing the herd for northern Victorian farmers Laurie and Gayle Clark.
And knowing how cows react to human voices plays a part in keeping the peace in the milking shed.
Gayle believes the cows get to know people who have regular contact with them and react well to caring behaviour, including talking and stroking.
Like many larger farms (they have about 650 cows in two herds at Katandra West), the Clarks rotate a number of milking staff through the rotary shed, and Gayle believes the cows quickly identify voices they are unfamiliar with.
As a result she asks staff to keep their voices down and only use vocal commands in certain circumstances.
“For owner operators who are in the shed 100 per cent of the time, the cows get to know the one person and build up a sense of trust,” Gayle said.
“But where you have multiple people they can sense a difference and that might trigger a fear response.
“But the cows do get to know you.
“Laurie knows them well enough to approach a cow having difficulty calving in the paddock.
“He can quietly walk up to her and making a low noise, like a calf, he can approach them and they don't appear to be frightened at all.”
Conversely, Gayle knows cows move away from unfamiliar or loud noises.
In the milking shed, the Clarks have a radio playing, usually on a commercial station, at relatively low volume, so the sound doesn't mask any issues that arise with the milking plant.
Moss Vale dairy farmer Jane Sherborne admits to talking to her cows.
She agrees they appear to enjoy the attention, however, she points out that the strongest forces driving cows would be fear, comfort and hunger.
“If you are offering food to them, while you are talking to them, they will run right through you to get to the feed.”
Jane said they obviously react negatively to loud noises, for example, when the fear and flight reflex kicks in.
“If a kangaroo jumps into the yard, and they do that sometimes here, they will take off, no matter what you say.”
Her own cows have names, as well as numbers, because with increasing herd sizes, and the introduction of computer software in record keeping, numbers are easier to work with.
Jane believes cows will respond to their own names if they is used often enough and associated with a pleasurable experience, like offering food.
But there is that fear/comfort/hunger reflex kicking in.
Jane and her family have a 300-cow herd in the NSW Southern Highlands, and at the moment they don’t employ additional labour.
One of Jane’s responsibilities is rearing the calves, a job she knows is often delegated to females on the farm.
But she is quick to point out that all women don’t necessarily make the best calf rearing managers, as she has good workers from both genders doing the job.
Gayle Clark said she had also read that cows prefer classical music.
Psychologists at the University of Leicester, in the United Kingdom, played music of different tempos to herds of Friesian cattle in a 2001 study.
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water were a big hit in the milking shed. But noisy tunes elicited no production response.