# Cow orientation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 20, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850 "2014-05-20T18:16:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/41 "2014-05-21T15:04:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I have no idea what you are talking about. I am refuting the facing into the wind theory because I have seen cows aligned when there is no wind. I’m not the least interested in an internet blurb and magnetic fields. So your statement hardly refutes mine. Your unsystematic and anecdotal observations don’t refute anything at all. They might align with the wind (or magnetic fields) under certain conditions, and not others. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/42 "2014-05-21T15:14:37Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Even for animals that are not strictly migratory, but roam over a large home range, it can still be useful to know direction in order to navigate. > [@PlainJain](#): > > Based on your comment they aren’t migratory, no I don’t see how important knowing where north is. It’s not like they are headed for South America. I didn’t say that they weren’t migratory (as has been noted, their ancestors were), but rather that it didn’t matter. If you have a home range large enough that you can’t rely on simple navigation by landmarks (or if you inhabit a forest where you can’t see very far, or a relatively featureless plain), then knowing directions could be be useful for finding your way around it. (This goes for large carnivores, for example.) > [@](#): > > Don’t they just gradually move to move where there is more food as the seasons change? This presumes there is continuous habitat throughout their range and they are simply moved along by what they can see or smell directly in front of them. This is unlikely to be true. Sometimes animals need to move where food will be seasonally even when they can’t see it directly. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/43 "2014-05-21T21:54:54Z")
I’ve never seen cows move or turn in any way that appeared deliberate. I think **PurpleClogs** nailed it. You let the cows out and they slowly walk, eating as they go, from one area of the pasture to another. They all face the same way because they are all moving (slowly) together as a group in the same direction. If you look at photos of nearly any kind of herd, all the animals are facing the same direction, as you would expect. They are all moving the same direction, so they are all facing the same way. It just happens that cows tend to move so slowly you don’t think of them as a moving herd. …or we could just assume spherical cows and be done with it. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/44 "2014-05-22T05:30:54Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > John Steinbeck might have had the right idea in _Cannery Row_: Was Steinbeck an archeologist? “Not sure what this is, but I assume it has religious significance.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/45 "2014-05-22T05:49:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Senegoid** , I’m pretty sure that whole post was a joke, but in case it’s not, or in case anyone else didn’t figure it out, water is electrically polarized, not magnetically. Not only is water not attracted to a magnet, it’s actually repelled (though much more weakly than iron is attracted-- You’d need a pretty strong magnet to notice it). Serious, bona-fide question, then: With my own eyes, I’ve seen it demonstrated that water is attracted (weakly) to a magnet. What exactly was I seeing? The demonstration: Prof turned on a rather small thin stream of water at the faucet. Then he held a magnet close to the descending stream of water (about an inch away, IIRC) and the falling stream visibly bent a little bit toward the magnet. I don’t remember what the magnet looked like – in particular, I don’t know if it was a horseshoe magnet (in which case, I guess, _both_ of its poles would be pointing toward the water). From another demonstration, we know that this was hard water. Could it be one of the dissolved minerals in the water that’s doing this? In that other demonstration, he showed that distilled water is not electrically conductive (or, if it is, not very much, because it failed to visibly light up a standard light bulb with standard 120 volts across a tub of distilled water). But using plain tap water instead, the bulb lit brightly, showing that tap water is highly conductive due to the dissolved ions. (Granted, this post has little to do with cows, unless they’re all pointed the same way because they’re hydrotropically seeking water.) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/46 "2014-05-22T08:04:15Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Serious, bona-fide question, then: With my own eyes, I’ve seen it demonstrated that water is attracted (weakly) to a magnet. What exactly was I seeing? Are you sure it was magnetism and not electrostatic attraction? [A common experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX3lK8xxqaY) is to bend a stream of water with a charged object. Since the magnetic repulsion (dimagnetism) effect is so weak, it’s easy to imagine an inadvertently charged magnet (say, one with a plastic coating) attracting water. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/47 "2014-05-22T09:17:36Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Are you sure it was magnetism and not electrostatic attraction? [A common experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX3lK8xxqaY) is to bend a stream of water with a charged object. Well, no, not really sure. It was presented that way, in a freshman-level intro chemistry class I took at the community college. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/48 "2014-05-22T10:01:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > African or European cows? Ah…it depends. African cows are not migratory but your European cow, well that’s a different animal altogether. Originating in the Kingdom of Mercia, Holsteins, Ayrshire, and Charolais are known for their migratory habits fetching coconuts from distant climes and following the ley lines whether they shall lead. In ancient times wandering knights used to come upon the coconuts, often hidden in a shrubbery on two levels with a little stream…errum, anyway they thought these to be magic droppings of great value. But by then the cows had migrated on. T’was a mystery much pondered in Camelot unawares that outside in pastures green, the cows solemnly pointed to the Great Henge. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/49 "2014-05-22T19:13:33Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > T’was a mystery much pondered in Camelot unawares that outside in pastures green, the cows solemnly pointed to the Great Henge. …only on the winter solstice, mind you. Other times, they grazed on huge… tracts of land. Or sank into the swamp. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/50 "2014-05-23T02:30:47Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > There is no alpha cow that says “OK, I’ve decided - it’s time to go, and we’re going this way, at this speed, to do this activity”. Actually, there is an “alpha” cow that decides where and what speed herds move and what they do. They’re called boss cows usually, and the other cows in the herd will follow her lead when moving to new areas of pasture or returning home at night or trying to escape predators. If you’re herding cattle from one place to another, then you try to control the behavior of the boss cow, which will lead to the rest of the herd following what she does. (Assuming the boss cow is at the front and not encouraging the back half of the herd to run in the opposite direction you want them to . . .) Here’s [an article from Progressive Dairy](http://progressivedairy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10260:cow-psychology-handle-them-by-getting-into-their-heads&catid=45:herd-health&Itemid=71) about cow psychology and how to use it to get cows to be cooperative. It’s written towards hoof trimmers, but I think it’s accessible enough that someone with cattle experience can get an idea of how herds operate. The author mentions something about cutting out boss cows last when trimming their hooves, which you want to do because otherwise, once she’s “free”, she’ll encourage the other cows waiting to basically riot and they’ll be stressed and unhappy and difficult to handle, which increases likelihood of injury for both the cattle and the people working them. /returns to lurkerdom ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/51 "2014-05-23T03:43:43Z")
> [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](#): > > Actually, there is an “alpha” cow that decides where and what speed herds move and what they do. They’re called boss cows usually, and the other cows in the herd will follow her lead when moving to new areas of pasture or returning home at night or trying to escape predators. If you’re herding cattle from one place to another, then you try to control the behavior of the boss cow, which will lead to the rest of the herd following what she does. (Assuming the boss cow is at the front and not encouraging the back half of the herd to run in the opposite direction you want them to . . .) > > Here’s [an article from Progressive Dairy](http://progressivedairy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10260:cow-psychology-handle-them-by-getting-into-their-heads&catid=45:herd-health&Itemid=71) about cow psychology and how to use it to get cows to be cooperative. It’s written towards hoof trimmers, but I think it’s accessible enough that someone with cattle experience can get an idea of how herds operate. The author mentions something about cutting out boss cows last when trimming their hooves, which you want to do because otherwise, once she’s “free”, she’ll encourage the other cows waiting to basically riot and they’ll be stressed and unhappy and difficult to handle, which increases likelihood of injury for both the cattle and the people working them. > > /returns to lurkerdom That may all be true, although the story you link and other pages I find searching “boss cow” don’t address the question of a herd’s alignment in the same direction while standing still. They talk about, as you mentioned, controlling herd psychology from the perspective of a rancher. The few at the top of the results all seem to be informal, anecdotal mentions of something that is obviously accepted at least in cattle ranching circles but they don’t serve as proof that cow’s don’t make decisions by consensus and not monarchy. I haven’t looked for any scientific studies or other evidence about the boss cow, so it might exist, but volumes of both definitely exist on the question of consensus decision making in herds. Cattle-ranching interests aside, what a ‘boss cow’ and herd do when being herded by a human isn’t necessarily relevant to what they do when they are standing around undisturbed in a huge area. Many herd species, even wild ones, are often observed aligning themselves in one direction and then moving that way when a majority of the herd are aligned. There may be a boss cow who has extra clout among a herd of domestic cattle and they may even follow her if she leads in the case of a predator or roundup for hoof trimming, but cows along with deer, even primates and insects make such decisions by consensus (i.e. voting) and not the declaration of an alpha. Social standing may figure in to what others decide to do but frequently it is the alpha or leader or whatever who is trailing the pack, the last to get the memo that the herd had voted and was moving away. In a big open space with hundreds of cows the boss cow doesn’t know if one a quarter mile away from her has had enough to eat yet, or wants water or fears a predator’s scent. Boss cows and magnetic fields may each be forces operating on the decisions of the individuals but they definitely display the ability to ‘vote’ on questions of herd movements. ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/52 "2014-05-23T03:59:26Z")
They’re making sure they herd [their leader](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI&feature=kp) correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/53 "2014-05-23T04:49:42Z")
> [@Crazyhorse](#): > > That may all be true, although the story you link and other pages I find searching “boss cow” don’t address the question of a herd’s alignment in the same direction while standing still. They talk about, as you mentioned, controlling herd psychology from the perspective of a rancher. The few at the top of the results all seem to be informal, anecdotal mentions of something that is obviously accepted at least in cattle ranching circles but they don’t serve as proof that cow’s don’t make decisions by consensus and not monarchy. I haven’t looked for any scientific studies or other evidence about the boss cow, so it might exist, but volumes of both definitely exist on the question of consensus decision making in herds. > > Cattle-ranching interests aside, what a ‘boss cow’ and herd do when being herded by a human isn’t necessarily relevant to what they do when they are standing around undisturbed in a huge area. Many herd species, even wild ones, are often observed aligning themselves in one direction and then moving that way when a majority of the herd are aligned. > > There may be a boss cow who has extra clout among a herd of domestic cattle and they may even follow her if she leads in the case of a predator or roundup for hoof trimming, but cows along with deer, even primates and insects make such decisions by consensus (i.e. voting) and not the declaration of an alpha. Social standing may figure in to what others decide to do but frequently it is the alpha or leader or whatever who is trailing the pack, the last to get the memo that the herd had voted and was moving away. > > In a big open space with hundreds of cows the boss cow doesn’t know if one a quarter mile away from her has had enough to eat yet, or wants water or fears a predator’s scent. > > Boss cows and magnetic fields may each be forces operating on the decisions of the individuals but they definitely display the ability to ‘vote’ on questions of herd movements. Herd behavior among domesticated cattle has been studied extensively by scientists, and I’m not aware of any studies that discredit the existence of boss or dominant cows, as they’re sometimes called in scholarly literature, though there’s plenty that also use the term boss cow. Many of these studies find that cows with the highest social ranking in the herd are the ones who control herd behavior. Here’s an example article for you: > [@](#): > > [Graded leadership in by dominant animals in a herd of female beef cattle on pasture](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347210000412) > > Abstract: The role of dominant individuals in leading groups of animals is not yet well understood. We investigated whether dominant beef cows, _Bos taurus_, have more influence on herd movement on pasture than more subordinate cows. A herd of 15 Gasconne cows was observed for a 3-week period between dawn and dusk. The positions of all adult cows were recorded with GPS collars at 1 min intervals and the behaviour of each cow was recorded in 5 min scans. The dominance hierarchy was recorded by ad libitum sampling. Through cluster analysis of the recorded data, we distinguished three herd behaviour patterns: resting, foraging and travelling. Dominant cows were closer to the front of the herd during both travelling and foraging. During travelling, more dominant cows also had more direct trajectories and were more aligned both with their nearest neighbours and with the whole herd. During foraging, the trajectories of dominant cows were shorter than those of subordinate cows. The results indicate that foraging and short-distance travelling movements by female beef cattle are not led by any particular individual but rather are influenced by a graded type of leadership; that is, the more dominant a cow is, the stronger the influence it may have on the movements of the herd. I was taking objection to your claim that there are no “alpha cows”, because studies of cattle herds demonstrate there is a definite social hierarchy within herds and that the cows with the highest social rank make decisions about what the herd does. That’s why the most dominant cow in the herd is called a boss cow – she’s in charge. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > Cattle-ranching interests aside, what a ‘boss cow’ and herd do when being herded by a human isn’t necessarily relevant to what they do when they are standing around undisturbed in a huge area. Actually, how cattle behave in pasture (you know, undisturbed in a huge area) is incredibly relevant to how they behave when interacting with humans. People herding cattle use the animals’ behavior, which has been observed through numerous studies, to predict what they’ll do, and humans use the behavior that boss cows display when interacting with subordinate cows to establish themselves as the dominant “cow” in that situation, including situations that are lower stress than moving cattle from one area to another, such as feedings. Cows react to the people who care for them like the people are members of the herd, and modern animal husbandry techniques encourage caretakers to take advantage of this with how they interact with their herds. > [@Crazyhorse](#): > > In a big open space with hundreds of cows the boss cow doesn’t know if one a quarter mile away from her has had enough to eat yet, or wants water or fears a predator’s scent. I’m not sure that a boss cow knowing that the other members of the herd have had enough food or not is relevant; boss cows tend to monopolize food resources. It can be a fairly big issue when it comes to raising calves, because the boss in the group can actually limit the access of less dominant to the feed, which leads to the less dominant calves being underweight and weak and more susceptible to illness. Sometimes the calves die because of it. This behavior is seen among adult cattle too, and boss cows will actually prevent lower-ranked cows from eating before them, and they also tend to consume more feed, sometimes to the point of cows with lower social ranking not eating. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/54 "2014-05-23T07:34:19Z")
> [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](#): > > I was taking objection to your claim that there are no “alpha cows”, because studies of cattle herds demonstrate there is a definite social hierarchy within herds and that the cows with the highest social rank make decisions about what the herd does. That’s why the most dominant cow in the herd is called a boss cow – she’s in charge. The statement: There is no alpha cow that says “OK, I’ve decided - it’s time to go, and we’re going this way, at this speed, to do this activity”. shouldn’t be read as “There is no alpha cow.” There are always dominant and subordinate individuals in a herd. The part you add above that the dominant cow “makes decisions about what the herd does” and that “she is in charge” are not proven by your cite. The study you linked looks credible and the manner of data collection is very similar to others that have concluded that by gazing in one direction, or turning themselves in one direction herd animals are ‘voting’ about what to do. Both the existence of dominant members in a society and this practice are possible and my statement was intended to be read as a complete sentence. Are you saying that the boss cow commands the herd to point north/northwest and await further instructions? The question is why they seem to do that, not whether or not there is a social hierarchy within the herd. One reason may be that they are voting – maybe you can look at it like they are signaling to the boss cow what they want to do and hoping that is what she wants to do too. But if a large majority are in agreement and she isn’t, they will go anyway and she will be in charge of an empty pasture. The study you linked concludes that there may be some casual relationship between social hierarchy and herd movement but that “foraging and short-distance travelling movements by female beef cattle are not led by any particular individual…”, and that “…the more dominant a cow is, the stronger the influence it may have on the movements of the herd.” That is hardly comparable to a supreme commander making decisions for the herd. One study that concludes that something may be suggested is useful data but not proof that the hypothesis you’re putting forth is a fact. There are numerous studies that suggest the opposite too - that herds turn their heads or entire bodies in the direction they want to go - watering hole, greener pasture, shadier meadow, and when a clear majority are facing the same way the herd moves that way. If the alphas are off somewhere butting heads with subordinates sometimes they aren’t even aware until a consensus has been reached by the herd and they start moving without them. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/55 "2014-05-23T16:43:33Z")
Birds fly it, cows line it, dogs shite it, let’s fall in Dope. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/56 "2014-05-23T16:46:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > IIRC, we looked at that paper claiming magnetic alignment before, and concluded that the statistics in it were extremely sketchy. Besides which, farmers have long been observing alignment by wind, and they couldn’t be aligning to both. Did that discussion take into account the subsequent (failed) attempts at replication by other teams, and also the original group’s later defense of their work? [http://www.nature.com/news/the-mystery-of-the-magnetic-cows-1.9350](http://www.nature.com/news/the-mystery-of-the-magnetic-cows-1.9350) It was a pretty polarized argument between them. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/57 "2014-05-23T19:55:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > IIRC, we looked at that paper claiming magnetic alignment before, and concluded that the statistics in it were extremely sketchy. Besides which, farmers have long been observing alignment by wind, and they couldn’t be aligning to both. Chronos, do you remember how they quantified the cow’s alignments? Were they “averaging” the directions of herd members, or did they consider each cow individually as a “hit” or “miss”? I find it surprising that they were claiming to measure the cows so accurately that they could state the cows were not just aligning north south, but magnetic north south. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850/58 "2014-05-24T22:13:55Z")
I don’t have much experience with cows, but I can tell you that goats, horses, and sheep, in groups, move both by leadership and consensus. Typically, the alpha female (and it usually is a female who takes this role if both sexes are intact and present – in a harem situation the male takes up the rear position, at least with horses), makes the initial move, and the others follow. But they all follow in a kind of consensus flow. Sometimes a different animal starts the flow but the alpha will then catch up and pass her. In goat herds ranging on natural vegetation, the queen goat (that is the term) tastes and either approves or disapproves any new species; nobody eats anything new without this test. It is one of the several interesting behavioral safeguards against poisoning and parasites built into goat feeding behavior. I’ve seen this myself, but according to one expert, the herd waits until the queen has completely digested the new food source before adding it to their repertoire. Haven’t seen this myself but my goats are not, strictly speaking, on natural range. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cow-orientation/688850.md?page=2)