There is nothing greater than a mother's love. It is the same thing between a cow and a calf. The love and compassion between the cow and calf start right after the birth.
So, when he is taken away from her, both mother and calf can often be heard calling out for each other for hours. In heart-wrenching scenes, cows have been witnessed chasing after a trailer carrying their calf away. Mothers have been known to grieve for days after their calf is removed, bellowing loudly in distress.
Cows. Cows instantly form strong bonds with their calves. Directly after birth, the mother will lick and nuzzle her calf clean, making a unique sound which encourages the calf to get up and nurse. In the dairy industry, calves are taken away from their mothers within hours or a couple of days after birth.
The bond between cow and calf develops rapidly after birth17, such that responses to separation are much stronger after just 4 days of continued contact (relative to separation in the hours after birth;25).
After a cow gives birth, she starts sniffing and licking her newborn calf. In this bonding process, she learns to recognize her calf, and commits to caring for it and protecting it. Her actions are a complex blend of hormonal-induced and learned behavior.
The cow often forgets about her calf. She walks or runs around, searching for her herd-mates and becomes extremely stressed. This can lead to the calf getting stepped, sat on, or injured in a variety of ways.
Effect on the mother cow
Farmers admit cows often "cry for days" after their babies are taken away. In at least one community, locals have reported the crying and bellowing to police, afraid something was wrong. And of course, for those cows, something was.
“If the mothering process is interrupted before she licks the calf, likelihood for rejection increases. Females that had difficult deliveries and required human assistance more often reject their calves.” If you pull a calf, it helps to smear birth fluids across the muzzle and tongue of the dam following delivery.
Caregivers at farm animal rescues and sanctuaries see firsthand how cows get attached to humans. Like other species, they give and receive affection through grooming one another. Thus, they love when their human caregivers give them pets and scratches, especially on the chin or behind the ears.
Cows will show affection to humans they can trust in several ways, such as following you, mooing at you, licking you, and playing with you.
The longer calves stay with their dam, the stronger the cow-calf bond and the greater the response (including a negative affective state) at separation. The stress of separating mother and young may also be associated with changes in the immune system that affect calf health and susceptibility to disease.
Cows do seem to enjoy petting, at least some of the time. One study showed that eye-white percentage decreased in cows after gentle petting, which implied increased happiness and relaxation.
And just like us, cows can take dislikes to each other and bear grudges too. They can also recognise and remember people who have treated them unkindly, for years. Cows like to play.
How Long Does It Take To Wean Calves? On average, it takes between 7 and 14 days after the calves and cows are separated for them to quit bawling, and begin to forget about each other.
And, though cows also have strong maternal bonds and are attentive, protective, and loving parents, a shocking 97 percent of calves birthed on dairy farms are taken away from their mothers within the first 24 hours of their lives so their mother's milk can be used for human consumption.
Under natural conditions calves would stay with their mother, who would provide them with nourishment, until natural weaning at around 8 months old.
Cows are highly social animals who make best friends, love receiving physical affection and are curious about other living things and the world around them. When separated from their favorite humans cows can even behave forlorn.
Under less artificial testing conditions, young cattle showed they were able to remember the location of feed for at least 48 days. Cattle can make an association between a visual stimulus and food within 1 day—memory of this association can be retained for 1 year, despite a slight decay.
Mother cows form an especially deep bond with their young and are extremely nurturing and devoted to them. Mothers will put themselves between any threat and her baby, willing to fight to protect her young. Calves will stay with their mothers within the herd for years, grazing together as friends.
Here they are protected from the weather and predators, fed milk and solid feed so they can grow and thrive. Calves are born with low immunity, and this is boosted by drinking colostrum, the first milk from their mothers, in the first 24 hours of life.
If you have ever watched a calf nurse from a mama cow, you probably saw them banging their head into her udder. This is normal behavior that stimulates the udder to “let down” additional milk for the hungry calf. This head-butting doesn't hurt the mama cow, but during bottle feeding it can be annoying.
Animal behaviorists have found that they interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time and sometimes holding grudges against other cows who treat them badly. These gentle giants mourn the deaths of and even separation from those they love, sometimes shedding tears over their loss.
When a calf wants its mom, it will and squeak from its hiding spot. Since cows only spend a small amount of time with their calf early on, mostly just to feed it , bonding time is crucial. In that sea of little spotted ungulates, a cow will almost always be able to pick out her calf by its scent and sound.
Recent research from the University of Northampton has highlighted the human-like relationships among cattle.