Happy Cows Get Massages, Spa Treatment In Wisconsin Dairy Barns: Video

MADISON, WI — There’s nothing like a spa day to peel away layers of stress and reveal a happier, more productive you. It turns out deep tissue massages and other relaxing treatments are good for dairy cows, too, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison initiative that focuses on making dairy cows happier so they will produce more milk.

Helping cows chill begins with bigger stalls and spaces for congenial cows to eat and chew their cuds together but also includes everything from back rubs and massages to ease lameness — which affects every aspect of a cow’s life — to misting and cooling breezes during hot summer months. Nigel Cook, a UW-Madison professor of veterinary medicine, says the approach is sensible, humane and profitable all at once.

Meeting cows’ needs and keeping them out of situations that are practically guaranteed to stress them out — like herding them into a new area with new cows and a new pecking order in the vulnerable weeks before they give birth — helps them become what Cook calls “Olympic athletes” with the speed-demon metabolism needed for phenomenal milk production, according to a release on the university’s website. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Madison Patch, or click here to find your local Wisconsin Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Since 2011, consultants from the UW–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine’s Dairyland Initiative have helped dozens of dairy farmers in Wisconsin, the No. 1 dairy producing state, transform their cramped barns into more comfortable milking parlors.

Mitch Breunig, who has 400 cows at his Mystic Valley Dairy in Sauk City, told the Associated Press that milk production increased from about 13 gallons of milk a day per cow to 15 gallons after he spent $100,000 on cow creature comforts. And, like humans, relaxed cows don’t stress eat as much, either, Breunig said.

Matthew Berge, who owns the 950-cow Badger Pride Dairy in eastern Wisconsin, says the approach comes down to letting cows be cows, according to the UW-Madison news release.

“Rather than build something and make the cows conform to it, why not build a facility to match the cows?” Berge said.

“The work Nigel has done on cow behavior helped frame our thinking,” Berge said. “We decided, ‘Let’s try to design a facility that will address some behavior issues that can cause problems.’ Every time you change the membership in the pen, the cows have to establish a new hierarchy. We went into the design looking to avoid that type of interaction so they don’t have that stress on top of the stress of birthing.”

Image via AP video