Environmental Enrichment for Dairy Cattle: Music

Music is often described as a universal language that transcends cultural and linguistic barriers. Its rhythms and melodies have the power to evoke emotions and feelings that can alter both psychological and physiological states. Remarkably, the impact of music extends beyond human experience into the animal kingdom, particularly in dairy cattle. Often kept in intensive housing that can lead to stressful conditions, dairy cattle have been shown to respond positively to certain types of music. This auditory enrichment has been found to improve their welfare, and, in turn, enhance their productivity. This article explores the effects and practicality of using music as a form of auditory enrichment for dairy cattle.

What Is Auditory Enrichment?

Auditory enrichment, or auditory stimulation, is a form of environmental enrichment where music is introduced into a captive environment to improve the biological functioning and welfare of the animal. This method is comparable to music therapy in human medicine, which is used to treat psychological and physiological disorders. Just as in human therapy, the effectiveness of auditory enrichment in animals depends on factors such as music type, intensity, and duration. Like any therapeutic intervention, the implementation of music requires careful consideration and adherence to specific guidelines to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved.

Type of Music

Choosing the right genre of music is crucial when implementing auditory enrichment, as a song’s acoustic properties, which include tempo, pitch, amplitude, and harmony, greatly influence its effects. These combined musical properties can stimulate a range of emotions, such as anger, arousal, fear, sadness, joy, and calmness. Research has shown that slow tempos, descending pitches, soft amplitudes, and consonant harmonies—features commonly found in genres like classical, country, jazz, and blues—are most effective for achieving calming therapeutic effects.

Sound Intensity

Intensively housed dairy cattle are routinely exposed to adverse environmental noise from heavy machinery and milking parlors that can reach up to 96 decibels. This noise pollution can lead to reduced feed intake, decreased rumen contractions, and increased anxiety, heart rate, and defecation in dairy cows. Playing calming music can help distract from environmental noise and mitigate other social and physiological stressors. However, for music to be effective, its amplitude should be kept at 70 decibels or below, which is the comfortable hearing level of cattle.

Music Duration

Environmental noise is unavoidable for intensively housed dairy cattle. Continuous exposure to high-frequency noise has been shown to negatively impact both milk quality and yield. Additionally, providing periods of silence has been associated with increased resting and rumination, as well as greater responsiveness to routine events. Offer auditory enrichment in structured intervals to maximize its benefits.

Benefits of “Moo-sic”

Auditory enrichment for intensively housed dairy cattle offers numerous benefits, including reduced tongue rolling (a stress indicator), vocalizations, and levels of cortisol, a key stress hormone. Music has also been shown to increase feed intake, positive social interactions between cows, and serotonin, a neurotransmitter associated with improved mental well-being. Management benefits include reduced kicking in the milking parlor and positive conditioning that enhances cows’ readiness to access the milking parlor. This leads to more cows in the holding area, increased milking frequencies, and more gate passings in automated milking systems. Additionally, daily milk yield has been shown to increase, while residual milk, milking time, and milk flow rate decrease. These effects promote greater milking efficiency, benefiting both cows and producers.

Cost of Enrichment

Sound system costs vary depending on the size of the dairy. For example, a single radio costing around $30 may be sufficient for small family farms, while larger commercial dairies may require an upgraded sound system costing around $200 for a pen size of roughly 900 square feet. Research has shown that proper auditory enrichment can lead to increased milk yield, potentially resulting in higher profits for producers and making the initial investment in a sound system worthwhile.

Other Applications

One of the primary reasons for implementing environmental enrichment is to compensate for the lack of natural environment for captive animals. In dairy cattle, music is primarily used in intensively housed systems. However, introducing auditory enrichment on pasture offers a promising approach to enhancing behavioral and physiological benefits, and can be implemented at relatively similar costs using battery- or solar-powered radios and speakers. Additionally, using music as a signal or stimulus to encourage cattle to walk toward the milking parlor is a promising conditioning technique that could promote efficiency and milking readiness.

Conclusion

The integration of auditory enrichment through music in dairy cattle management offers a promising and practical way to enhance the welfare and productivity of these animals. By carefully selecting appropriate music, maintaining suitable sound intensity, and implementing it in structured intervals, dairy farmers can create a more calming environment for their cattle. The benefits of this approach are clear: reduced stress behaviors and improved physiological well-being, which could lead to production gains such as increased milk yield and greater milking efficiency. Extending this practice to pasture-raised cattle opens new avenues to enhance animal welfare in more natural settings.

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Publication 4069 (POD-12-24)

By Jalyn Hawkins, Graduate Research Assistant, and Jessica Halfen, PhD, Assistant Extension/Research Professor, Animal and Dairy Sciences. Thanks to Clay Cavinder, PhD, Professor of Animal and Dairy Sciences, for his support in the development of this enrichment series.