Why This Cow Is Wearing a VR Headset

With the help of technology, the world is changing very first than ago. Technology showing us more than we think. Interesting Engineering reports that dairy cows in Russia are sporting virtual reality headsets that decrease anxiety and may increase their milk production. Scientists believe piping virtual pastoral settings into the animals’ vision is the next in a series of quality-of-life improvements for dairy cows that includes robotic milkers that let cows roam further and have more freedom.

Cow wearing a VR Headset 

Dairy cows have been specially bred over many generations to produce more and higher-quality milk than their ancestors or contemporary beef cattle. A dairy cow can be milked up to four times a day, but most dairy farms milk twice a day as a compromise between production and cow welfare. More frequent milking means more wear and tear on cows, which not only makes them uncomfortable, but can also open them up to health problems. Curbing that risk means better quality of life for cows and farmers alike.

For dairy farmers who aren’t willing to take a risky leap into three-a-day milking, science is working hard to improve productivity within the time considered reasonable for a dairy cow to spend being milked each day. Five years ago, robotic milkers changed the lives of many dairy farmers and their herds by letting cows choose to pull into a milking station the way cars pull off the interstate to refuel.

The VR headsets are the next frontier. Dairy cows may have regular access to fields where they can graze and roam, but for much of the year, especially in Russia, their surroundings are cold and gray. While cows can thrive in inclement weather, their milk production might slow in an effort to prepare for cold winter conditions that farm animals, who are reliably fed and cared for every day, just don’t have to contend with in reality. Instead, scientists are fitting the cows with VR headsets filled with 360 degrees of summer greenery and sunshine.

If this sounds like dairy cows are entering The Matrix, that’s kind of the idea. Even the happiest dairy cows can have their emotional state improved by soothing tricks like music, best friends, and now, VR. The industry standard is to remove baby cows from their mothers almost instantly, which is emotionally hard on the babies and can lead to anxiety and pessimism. Scientists can study animals in more detail now that we have developed metrics and tools to assess their mental capacity, emotional state, reactions to stimuli, and more.

With that information in hand, teams like the one near Moscow can continue tinkering with ways to make cows and other livestock animals happier, hopefully by building on improving models of animal husbandry that emphasize quality of life further down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as well. Happy, healthy cows with stimulating lives end up producing more and better dairy.

Demand for food in general could increase literally 100 percent by 2050 as the world’s population continues to grow, and while many countries are consuming less red meat and dairy, billions of people in the developing world will hopefully gain access to these and other nutrient-dense food sources in a more food-secure future. Producing more dairy with the same cow is part of an overall push to make agriculture more efficient.

Source: popularmechanics