# How Much Do Outdoor Animals Suffer in the Cold? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610 "2014-02-05T22:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/41 "2014-02-07T00:58:52Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > they might freeze their hoofies to the quick. Those poor cows with their little frozen hoofies ☹ [Hopefully they don’t freeze more than hoofies.](http://ward26.org/ward26/wp-includes/pomo/feeling-cold-cartoon-i17.png) ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/42 "2014-02-07T01:08:58Z")
Re: the huddling of herd animals. Sheep farmers (graziers) in Australia will often plan for lambing during winter _after shearing_ as the resultant huddling will protect the young lambs from fox and feral dog attacks. Not that it gets _that_ cold here of course, but overnight temps in grazing country will often get down to -4 or -5C. Yes, our sheep are wimps too. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/43 "2014-02-07T01:14:57Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.” - D. H. Lawrence Hooyah, Master Chief. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/44 "2014-02-07T01:33:44Z")
It’s hard to say whether comparing cold and pain even makes sense. Something extreme like putting your hand in ice water is definitely painful. However, general coldness has never seemed to be painful as much as uncomfortable. I remember a few nights on a missions trip to Mexico where it was simply impossible to get warm where we were sleeping. Even wearing my clothes, with multiple blankets and a sleeping bag, I was so cold that I had a lot of trouble sleeping at all. I remember those nights as being miserable, but I don’t really think of it as pain. I’ve heard stories of people with hypothermia that freezing to death is not such a bad way to go, all things considered. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/45 "2014-02-07T01:58:15Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > That makes sense for animals that have fur and feathers.But what about cows, horses, etc? The ruminant livestock (cattle, sheep goats etc) do much better because they have a bloody great fermentation vat inside. The temperature within the rumen is typically around 40.0 °C, (104F) a couple of degrees about body temperature. If you can get them out of the wind and stay dry they will survive well. Horses can be described as reverse ruminants with a substantial amount of digestion occurring in their hindgut, so they also benefit from having a self-heating system. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/46 "2014-02-07T03:50:25Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > There is no doubt that animals will act in their best interests. What they lack is the ability to frame such experiences in the way that self-aware humans are able to see their current position and its eventual outcome. It is said that humans are the only animals that really know their own fate. Do a google search for “snow monkeys”. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/47 "2014-02-07T07:22:34Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > While poetic, is that really true? > > Elephants and primates apparently grieve for their lost ones. Cattle will become agitated upon seeing others of their herd sent to slaughter, even if the death is not visually apparent to them. Ravens will gang up on antisocial group members with a clear progression of punishments, ranging from gentle dissuasion to gang murder and eye-gouging of especially disliked birds (which they would not otherwise do to dead ravens). Groups of buffalo have been known to call for help from a herd and to return to a straggler, rescuing them predators. > > Beyond death, chimps plan and scheme with their peers, both against one another and towards human researchers. Ravens can plan their actions to deceive others in their group, as well as learning and reenacting complex chains of events that lead to food procurement. > > These suggest at least some rudimentary notion of “X will happen if I do or don’t do Y”, beyond the basic flight-or-flight fear instinct. And some of these behaviors, at least on the surface, seem to exhibit more awareness of the eventuality of death than your average human child might. > > If you’re going to say that it is indeed the case that animals cannot comprehend their fates (which I take to mean that they cannot establish a clear mental chain of causation between action X and consequence Y), please provide some evidence or at least some explanations. > > Maybe it’s a matter of degree – this pack of wolves might not recognize their greater ecological significance to the Yellowstone biome, for example – but many humans also seem to exhibit the same lack of introspection and awareness of long-term cause-and-effect chains. I don’t know, because I’m not an animal psychology expert, but your claim just seems to be a very powerful one backed up by rather weak assertions. Of course it is a matter of degree, but the conceptual forecasting available to humans obviously outpaces by several degrees of magnitude that available to other primates and even more so other mammals. There is considerable evidence that such animals an plan and forecast, but no evidence that any approaches the ability of modern humans to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/48 "2014-02-07T07:23:49Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > A _different_ reaction to pain is pretty uncontentious since even individuals of the same species appear to have a somewhat different reaction. > > It was your earlier point that “much reaction to distress is learned” that I was disputing. Do you not accept that we frame such experiences in positive and negative manners because of our high level cognitive abilities? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/49 "2014-02-07T10:18:52Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Do you not accept that we frame such experiences in positive and negative manners because of our high level cognitive abilities? What I’m not accepting is your earlier assertion that “much reaction to distress is learned”. Consider pain for a moment. Very young babies behave similarly to adults in response to painful stimuli (indeed, they obviously cry out more). So either pain just is a negative stimulus, and _not_ learned, or we now need to figure out why babies “fake” discomfort. Then, when it comes to cold, the default position should be that it is just like with pain; if it’s a negative sensation, it’s hard-wired to be, and knowledge of consequences may affect that but it does not make it negative. If there’s compelling evidence to treat cold as a special case, let’s hear it. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/50 "2014-02-07T16:37:22Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > What I’m not accepting is your earlier assertion that “much reaction to distress is learned”. > > Consider pain for a moment. Very young babies behave similarly to adults in response to painful stimuli (indeed, they obviously cry out more). > So either pain just is a negative stimulus, and _not_ learned, or we now need to figure out why babies “fake” discomfort. > > Then, when it comes to cold, the default position should be that it is just like with pain; if it’s a negative sensation, it’s hard-wired to be, and knowledge of consequences may affect that but it does not make it negative. If there’s compelling evidence to treat cold as a special case, let’s hear it. Pain (of any kind) is certainly perceived by all sentient organisms- it is part of a survival mechanism. HOW it is conceived is another matter. Some pain transmission in humans may be entirely factual and non-emotional under opiates- one is aware that one is in pain, but there is no pain and no emotional load. Additionally, higher sentient beings are able to construct complex frames about facts and it is well documented that such cognitive framing changes (up or down) the quality of the pain experienced. Different brains will react differently. I doubt that sheep and cattle have complex cognitive functions and know that lower animals lack those neural centres that mediate pain in higher animals. Learning affects such framing, ergo learning affects conception of pain. In summary, pain may be experienced in different modalities within and between species. I am pretty sure that cattle are very aware of cold, but doubt that it is anything like the same sensation that humans experience for the same degree of stress. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/51 "2014-02-07T19:14:02Z")
My thinking is that the amount we and other animals feel (and therefore suffer from) cold directly relates to our ability to do something about it. We humans don’t have a great tolerance for cold on a purely physical level, but we have a great ability to control our environment. We can seek or build shelter, put on clothing, or build fire. Its our suffering that motivates us to expend the energy needed to take these actions. For something like a cow however, whose natural environment is standing out in the middle of a field, it would serve little purpose for it to spend the entire winter thinking, “I’m cold, I’m cold, I’m really cold, I’m cold.” That’s not to say they don’t feel cold, but ‘suffering’ would seem a needless distraction if there is nothing a particular animal can do to improve its situation, and assuming its situation is somewhere within the realm of “normal” for it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/52 "2014-02-07T20:14:53Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > In summary, pain may be experienced in different modalities within and between species. I am pretty sure that cattle are very aware of cold, but doubt that it is anything like the same sensation that humans experience for the same degree of stress. Again, if all you are saying is that their sensation is _different_, then no-one is going to dispute that. Other than that, I genuinely don’t know what point you are trying to make. Let’s put it like this. A ill man may experience both physical pain and mental anguish. Homo sapiens’ ability to feel the latter is almost certainly far greater than any other species’ due to our much richer awareness of our circumstances. No arguments there. But what I took you to be saying in [Post #10](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17080366&postcount=10) when you said “Animals lack much of the cognitive ability to experience cold” was that physical pain _requires_ mental anguish. It’s this that I disagree with, for the reasons I’ve already given. And, indeed, I could give more reasons why I think this doesn’t stand up, once you respond to the arguments given so far. If that’s not what you’re saying, then please could you clarify for me what your point is. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/53 "2014-02-08T00:01:35Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Again, if all you are saying is that their sensation is _different_, then no-one is going to dispute that. Other than that, I genuinely don’t know what point you are trying to make. > > Let’s put it like this. A ill man may experience both physical pain and mental anguish. Homo sapiens’ ability to feel the latter is almost certainly far greater than any other species’ due to our much richer awareness of our circumstances. No arguments there. > > But what I took you to be saying in [Post #10](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17080366&postcount=10) when you said “Animals lack much of the cognitive ability to experience cold” was that physical pain _requires_ mental anguish. > It’s this that I disagree with, for the reasons I’ve already given. And, indeed, I could give more reasons why I think this doesn’t stand up, once you respond to the arguments given so far. > > If that’s not what you’re saying, then please could you clarify for me what your point is. You are going at a straw man. You are quoting what I said only partially. I stand by my full statement: "Animals lack much of the cognitive ability to experience cold (and much else) as fully self conscious humans are able to. They lack our ability to see alternatives or believe that there could be an alternative. This is probably a benefit to them as anxiety and ability to see that it could be otherwise is something that increases human discomfort. Much reaction to distress is learned ( think of children playing in the cold until they are blue, where adults would worry about consequences). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/54 "2014-02-08T00:21:31Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > You are going at a straw man. You are quoting what I said only partially. I stand by my full statement Well your full statement is saying more than just animals’ responses are different to human responses, particularly the example. It’s implying foreknowledge / awareness is necessary in some sense for negative qualia, but this is something you won’t defend when pressed. So fine, whatever. If now you just want to say animals’ responses to stimuli are different to humans’, I agree. It’s not a very helpful response to the OP, but fine. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/55 "2014-02-08T07:49:49Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well your full statement is saying more than just animals’ responses are different to human responses, particularly the example. It’s implying foreknowledge / awareness is necessary in some sense for negative qualia, but this is something you won’t defend when pressed. > > So fine, whatever. If now you just want to say animals’ responses to stimuli are different to humans’, I agree. It’s not a very helpful response to the OP, but fine. My only point is that there is a range of cognitive responses to sensory inputs and that we cannot assume (in fact should deny) the equivalence between Higher Cognitive Interpreters (Humans) and animals of various levels of cognitive development. Given this (and Despite "What is it like to be a bat?) it is clear to me that the experience of pain is not only cognitively mediated within a single individual, but mediated in different manners in different brains. That is to say, lower animals experience pain in different manners to that humans do. Reinforcement for this comes from recent studies in neuro-anatomy that show that ablation (accidental or clinical) of certain brain areas has the same effect as the central effect of opiates- pain experienced as a cognitive fact rather than as a “painful” percept. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/56 "2014-02-09T11:12:23Z")
The weather people here issue warnings to sheep and goat farmers , warning of perhaps lethal cold. mainly the risk is to the newly shorn or born animal. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/57 "2014-02-09T17:01:58Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > That is to say, lower animals experience pain in different manners to that humans do. I’m sure that’s correct, but I wouldn’t say that it means they suffer any less. In my experience, knowledge and experience tend to reduce impact. I certainly felt things a lot more strongly as a child than as an adult. If physical reactions are any clue (and I admit that they probably aren’t a very good one), some animals (like children) feel things like anticipation very strongly. Admittedly, this is just an analogy and applies only weakly. Regardless, I do not assume that there is a monotonically increasing scale of intensity of experience, as intelligence rises. When there is zero intelligence, clearly there is no qualia. A rock experiences nothing. Many folks here say that an insect is an unaware automata. I’m not sure I agree, but I’m not particularly concerned about the suffering of insects. Eventually we hit some type of life that we grant awareness, but perhaps not much of it. So I suspect that at the bottom of the scale, intensity of experience increases with increasing intelligence (using that word for lack of a better one). But I’m not at all convinced that this relationship holds all the way up the ladder and beyond. In any case, there’s really no way to tell. Maybe someday when we have AI that we believe is aware, we can experiment and get a few data points – though even those would be difficult to interpret and extrapolate from. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/58 "2014-02-10T18:49:11Z")
Lots of speculation in this thread. I think most animals show that they will make an effort to achieve [homeostasis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis) – they will move into shade when too hot, they will bask in the sun when too cold, and so forth. Being out of homeostasis seems to exert some sort of stimulus on them. So there’s clearly evidence they react to temperature extremes when they can. I can’t read their inner experiences, but I still feel compassion toward them when they want to be warmer, but are not able to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/59 "2014-02-11T12:06:16Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > I’m sure that’s correct, but I wouldn’t say that it means they suffer any less. > > In my experience, knowledge and experience tend to reduce impact. I certainly felt things a lot more strongly as a child than as an adult. If physical reactions are any clue (and I admit that they probably aren’t a very good one), some animals (like children) feel things like anticipation very strongly. Admittedly, this is just an analogy and applies only weakly. Regardless, I do not assume that there is a monotonically increasing scale of intensity of experience, as intelligence rises. > > When there is zero intelligence, clearly there is no qualia. A rock experiences nothing. Many folks here say that an insect is an unaware automata. I’m not sure I agree, but I’m not particularly concerned about the suffering of insects. Eventually we hit some type of life that we grant awareness, but perhaps not much of it. So I suspect that at the bottom of the scale, intensity of experience increases with increasing intelligence (using that word for lack of a better one). But I’m not at all convinced that this relationship holds all the way up the ladder and beyond. > > In any case, there’s really no way to tell. Maybe someday when we have AI that we believe is aware, we can experiment and get a few data points – though even those would be difficult to interpret and extrapolate from. Recent Neurology advances is beginning to unpick the "What is it Like to be a Bat?"question- which previously was seen as unknowable. Researchers know which areas of the human brain react when pain is felt as an extreme discomfort rather than as just knowledge of damage. They also know that if these areas are inoperative, then pain is experienced factually rather than emotionally. This leads to the contention that foetuses under 20 weeks do not feel pain and this is used when surgery is carried out in the womb without anaesthetic. A similar argument would apply to the existence or non-existence of the appropriate morphologically and functionally similar centre in human and animal brains. In my humble opinion we are probably looking at a complex interpretaion of pain- In higher animals there is certainly a direct experience of emotional pain; the lower down the phylogenetic scale you go with reduced consciousness, the more likely pain is not 'experienced, but merely reacted to. Humans have the unique ability to be able to predict the future with considerable accuracy in the manner that lower animals cannot; this means that added to the immediate pain is the knowledge of how serious the damage is likely to be, and we know that as anxiety increases, interpretation of pain changes for the worse. It is worth remembering that ‘Pain’ is not a single set of qualia, and that pain can be experienced differently by quite simple chemical or psychological intervention. Anyone with the experience of taking opiates will know how they cut out many direct unpleasant experiences of pain to the point where the pain becomes knowledge rather than experience. We also know that psychological conditions such as belief in controlling the pain oneself (using what is thought to be a self doser) decreases the emotional and serious experience of pain, even when a placebo administrator is used. ---
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610/60 "2014-02-11T15:21:30Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > This reminds me of a possibly-relevant factoid: I’ve seen it mentioned, regarding those occasional stories about feral children, that they seem to be insensitive to cold. It was mentioned regarding [Victor of Aveyron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron) and I think I’ve seen it mentioned in other stories of feral children. > > And feral children don’t even have feather or much fur to fluff! Humans are adaptable, like other animals. As a teenager, long-distance swimmer Lynne Cox trained herself to endure cold by wearing light clothing year-round and sleeping with the windows open and no covers. Now she’s able to swim for long periods of time in Arctic and Antarctic waters while I’d probably just die from the shock, even in the protective wetsuit she wears. Because of the way we live, our bodies have different definitions of normal, and would react differently to the same environmental stimulus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-outdoor-animals-suffer-in-the-cold/680610.md?page=4)