Sweet Music for Milking

Researchers tell us that dairy cows produce more milk when listening to relaxing music. They believe farmers could get an extra pint from their charges by playing classical music or smoochy numbers in the cowshed.Not too surprising is it? As a former nursing mother, I can say that being relaxed helps humans produce more milk too. Psychologists at the University of Leicester, UK, played music of different tempos to herds of Friesian cattle.
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water were a big hit in the milking shed. But when rowdy numbers, like Mud's Tigerfeet and Size of a Cow by Wonderstuff, were played, there was no increase in milk yield.
"Calming music can improve milk yield, probably because it reduces stress," said Dr Adrian North, who carried out the study with colleague Liam MacKenzie.
Some farmers already play music to chickens, as there is anecdotal evidence that it reduces stress.
"A lot of farmers seem to think it works," Dr North told BBC News Online. "In essence, we're following their lead."

Why do some dogs sing?

Many times throughout my life, I've wondered why some dogs try to sing along with music they hear and others seem to be fairly oblivious to it. I've never really gotten a good answer to it, but here's what I did find out the other day:

Singing: some dogs "sing" very easily especially if they hear high tones. Some dogs can be trained to make different kinds of weird noises, especially the more vocal breeds/individuals. In Finland there is a famous dog call Gizmo who performs with a symphony orchestra. He sits on the owner's lap and sings along with their music! Dawn Carla Speer wrote: I could get Heike going for a couple of minutes straight ... I would make different sounds -- sort of like the range of sounds you could get from a wah-wah pedal for a guitar -- and she would imitate them really closely. If I told her "Be indignant!" she would make lower pitched noises, and if I said "Shhhh..." she would just make the mouth movements with no sound at all. This came from: http://users.tkk.fi/~mtt/belg_tricks.html Enjoy!