To the untrained ear, every “moo” coming from a cow may sound the same.
But an app developed by researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax is here to dispel that notion.
“Every moo is a message. There’s a lot of buried information behind it,” said Suresh Neethirajan, a computer science and agriculture professor at the university.
“Every cow has her own personality. They not only talk amongst themselves, they also talk to their calves, but also talk to the animal caretakers, farmers, and humans.”
He and his team have designed and launched MooLogue, a tool that can help improve animal welfare and farming practices by decoding the dairy cows’ communications.
By analyzing and understanding the cows’ vocalizations, a farmer may be able to tell when a cow is in pain and likely sick, or how a cow is feeling emotionally.
“We call this the Duolingo of cow language,” he said, in reference to a popular language-learning app.
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The app contains 300 call types that fall under 45 categories — ranging from distress calls, to expressions of happiness, to maternal calf calling.
“For example, if there is a delay in the feeding, they express their dissatisfaction. If (they are) thirsty or overcrowded, they express that. If they’re happy, they try to demonstrate the playful behaviour through their unique vocal signatures,” he said.
More than 1,000 hours of audio data were collected from a dozen dairy farms in Atlantic Canada for the project.
This isn’t the first time Neethirajan and his team have attempted to crack the code when it comes to animal language.
Last spring, they shared a similar app — dubbed Cluckify — that helped chicken farmers understand what their flocks were saying.
And thanks to the help of this new technology, Neethirajan expects greener pastures ahead.
“From the perspective of the animal kingdom, we are just starting to scratch the surface. Their lives are much more enriched,” he said.
“Through the usage of technology, we are trying to create more compassionate, empathy-based farming.”
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