Breed cows for temperament?

Everyone knows that cows have their own personalities and temperament. There are “boss” cows and then there are the more timid ones.

A Dutch researcher has come up with objective evidence.

He charted the cows’ physiological response when confronted with an unfamiliar object. In one experiment, cows were placed in an empty room and confronted with a Jerry can brought in by a pulley. Some cows made contact with the Jerry can after just a few seconds, while others didn’t dare to approach it at all during the 10-minute test, according to this story last Friday in Science Daily.

What the researcher, Kees van Reenen goes on to suggest is noteworthy: Maybe temperament could be bred as a selective trait to produce robust dairy cows, similar to the way animals are selected for productive life, feet and legs, and low susceptibility to mastitis.

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