Dairy cows produce more milk when listening to REM’s “Everybody Hurts” or Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony” than when subjected to Wonderstuff’s “Size of a Cow” or the Beatles” “Back In The USSR” a new study by music research specialists at the University of Leicester has found.

Their milk yield rose by 0.73 litres per cow per day when they were exposed to slow music rather than fast music. The results revealed a three per cent increase in output when slow rather than fast music was played.

Dr. [Adrian] North said, “We have found that cows respond to a pleasant auditory environment by producing more milk. It seems that slow music had the effect of alleviating stress and relaxing the animals which resulted in greater milk yields.”

Additional funding for research is intended to address several other relevant questions, including preferred instruments, benefits for other species (presumably farm species), whether the quality of the audio reproduction has an effect, other aspects of music other than tempo.

For Science!

Biology Online via Neatorama.