Training cows to go to the toilet can reduce ammonia emissions

In the farm, cattle can excrete at will when they eat grass, and the accumulation and diffusion of feces often pollute the local soil and waterways
.

Although people can keep cows in barns, their urine and feces will combine to produce ammonia, an indirect greenhouse gas, in these small spaces
.

On September 13, in an article published in Current Biology ("Contemporary Biology"), a journal of Cell Press , the researchers stated that if cows can learn to "go to the toilet", so that breeders can collect and Treating manure can reduce air pollution and create a more open and animal-friendly farm
.

"People usually think that cows have no ability to control defecation or urination,
" said Jan Langbein, an animal psychologist at the German Farm Animal Biology Institute (FBN), co-author of the paper
.

In order to train the calves to go to the toilet, the Langbein research team conducted research with scientists from FBN, the Leibniz Institute for Aging and the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

The ammonia produced in cow manure does not directly cause climate change, but when it enters the soil, microorganisms convert it into nitrous oxide, which is the third most important greenhouse gas after methane and carbon dioxide
.

"You have to try to involve animals in this process and train them to follow what they have learned
.

In order to encourage them to go to the toilet, the researchers hoped to make the calves connect urinating outside the toilet with unpleasant experiences
.

In a few weeks, the research team successfully trained 11 of the 16 calves to learn how to go to the toilet
.

Langbein is optimistic that with more training, the relevant success rate can be further improved
.

Now that the researchers know how to train cows to go to the toilet, they want to apply the research results to real farms and outdoor systems
.

Related paper information: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cub.
2021.
07.
011