This is one way to take a stance against climate change- by training cows to use a toilet.
It's often considered cows cannot control where they lay waste.
However, that's now been disproved by researchers in Germany.
A well-known fact is that cows freely relieve themselves as they graze.
The accumulation and spread of waste often contaminates local soil and waterways.
When the urine and faeces combine, they create ammonia which is an indirect greenhouse gas.
In an article published on September 13, researchers show that cows can be toilet-trained.
This enables waste to be collected and treated, thereby cleaning up the barn, reducing air pollution, and creating more open, animal-friendly farms.
An animal psychologist at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Germany, Jan Langbein, said: "It’s usually assumed that cattle are not capable of controlling defecation or urination.
“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?”
Training
To train the calves, they use a process that they dubbed called MooLoo training.
Researchers started rewarding the calves when they urinated in the latrine.
They allowed the calves to approach the latrines from outside when they needed to urinate.
To encourage latrine use, the researchers wanted the calves to associate urination outside the latrine with an unpleasant experience.
Langbein said: “As a punishment we first used in-ear headphones and we played a very nasty sound whenever they urinated outside.
“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.”
Unusual but innovative, is what we say!
