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225 points DonHopkins | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.248s | source
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unclad5968 ◴[] No.43699358[source]
It's cool that this allows the cows to be milked whenever they feel like it. I'd imagine the autonomy actually does improve the cow's quality of life. Also neat that they learned to game the feeding robot. It reminds me of the image recognition experiments they do with birds.
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Aardwolf ◴[] No.43702746[source]
Do you think cows care about human interaction, or are indifferent whether it's a living creature or a robot?
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1. eitland ◴[] No.43704121[source]
Varies from cow to cow I guess.

One particular cow ("Evjelin" IIRC) would try to avoid her own calves because (it seemed) she much preferred the machine it seemed.

The final year we found her calf with a broken neck in a flat area of the pasture. (Yes, they were always allowed to stay outdoors around when they calved and usually they spent a few days outside together. Mostly this was great I think and except this incident I only remember one other were it was a problem: one calf had got under the fence and into the bog and the cow had followed it into the bog and it was a real mess and I was a really proud teenager when I was able to get out the calf. Both of them needed help to get out but both survived and recovered nicely IIRC.)

(source: grew up on a tiny dairy farm)