Potty-training Cows

How come they never though of this before?

Researchers from the University of Auckland and the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health in Germany trained 16 calves to use a latrine they call the MooLoo. It’s essentially a bright green pen that gives the animals a food reward for urinating there.

“This is how some people train their children – they put them on the toilet, wait for them to pee, then reward them if they do it,” says Lindsay Matthews, lead author of the study. “Turns out it works with calves too. In very short order, five or 10 urinations for some animals, they demonstrated they understood the connection between the desired behavior and the reward by going to the feeder as soon as they started urinating.”

The animals were discouraged from peeing elsewhere with gentle deterrents like collar vibrations or splashes of cold water. And sure enough, after 15 days of training, most of them had gotten the hang of it, and would head to the MooLoo on their own when they felt nature calling.