Hello All,
I am currently in the late stages of interviewing for a postdoctoral research position that could optionally include cow cognition as one component of the research program. There is considerable flexibility in the projects I could pursue if I accept this position, although some projects may be limited by the relatively small size of the research herd compared to agricultural herds. Some of the project ideas I am considering would investigate social contagion, tactile disturbances (e.g., biting flies), and general environmental influences on behavioral (and perhaps electrophysiological) indicators of affect. Comparative cognition is not the subject of my PhD, which is in human cognitive neuroscience. As such, I thought it might be worth checking whether there are people on the EA Forum who are knowledgeable about the current pressing issues in the welfare of farmed animals and who may have general suggestions for high-impact research directions that I may not have considered. Does anyone have any suggestions on some of the major open questions for the wellbeing of cows?
If anyone does suggest promising directions that I have not already considered, I will try to think of appropriate experiments to address those questions and will discuss any feasible experiments with my prospective postdoc advisor. I have not posted on this forum before, so please forgive me if this is not the appropriate place for this type of question. Thank you!
Do we have a curve of the stress intensity of stress of mother cows after separation from the calf (at least by age of calf). I would try to identify neural indicators of stress (you need to map stress signals between humans and cows), and graph them under different circuntances.
More generally, a full predictive model of bovine stress could be useful to assess what can be done to measure and improve the cow conditions (how better is a free range vs. a farmed cow).
Yes, I do know of some previous work examining the relationship between stress response and time of separation. Weary and Chau (2000) separated calves and mother cows 6 hours, 1 day, or 4 days after birth. They found greater behavioral signs of distress (e.g., vocalizations, pacing, looking outside of the pen) in both calves and mothers when separation occurred later than when separation occurred earlier.
There may be room for further work identifying indicators of stress. Most of the indicators currently used are behavioral, and some of these don't have direct analogues in humans. Heart rate variability and nasal temperature have also been suggested as indicators of stress, but their reliability is questionable. There may be electrophysiological correlates which have not yet been identified, but electrophysiological signals from cows are very noisy during locomotion and rumination, which together occupy much of cows’ time.
I am certainly interested in mapping what sorts of conditions influence cows' stress levels in general. One of the projects we have been considering could partly address that question. Thank you for your suggestions!