Cow milk yield increases when they listen to classical music, according to a cattle breeder in Turkey.
Mehmet Akgül, a cattle breeder from the district of Yazıhan, found a five per cent increase in the milk yield of cows with the help of classical music therapy. He performed his experiment on his ranch in the eastern Malatya province.
“If this music provides relaxation on humans, so I thought that why wouldn’t it work on animals?” Akgül said in an interview with Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
Akgül played out classical music for his cows on speakers, and it stimulated them at specific times, leading to increase in cow milk yield.
“I set up a music system and observed the increase in the milk yield. Whatever kind of feed you give them, the important thing is to relieve the stress from the animal,” Akgül said. “This way I saw there is a significant increase in the yield and also the health problems of animals have decreased,” he added.
Akgül plans to conduct the experiment on a larger scale to produce more results. He encourages dairy producers and other animal breeders to do the same. “Do not use the high quality of feeds and try to increase the milk yield. There is no cost in the experiment. Just try the classical music or Turkish art music, you won’t lose anything,” he said.
Meanwhile, veterinary physician Mehmet Erkan Doğan told Turkish paper that the farm will give the animals massages using techniques from Far East countries. “Animals need to be healthy and peaceful in psychological and physical terms. In this situation, we came up with the idea of applying classical music therapy to animals. When we look at the results, we can see there is an increase in the milk yield and decrease in the diseases,” he said.
