Cow's Hair Whorl Experiment

Analysis This experiment took place in order to resolve the theories that the height of a cow’s hair whorl can predict the way the cow will react while being handled by the producer. The experiment took place at a cattle operation owned by Jim Hull in Philadelphia, TN when he was doing normal weigh-in and vaccination procedures with his animals. These procedures consisted of trimming of the tail, a vaccine and de-wormer injection in the neck on each side, and a new ear tag if the cow exceeded the weight of 650 pounds. The cattle were rated when the animal first entered the squeeze chute and was caught by the head gate. The rates of this cattle was determined by their reaction to the operation by thrusting or struggling to get fee. The rating was written down next to the cow’s number, weight, gender, and the height of the whorl on the cow’s head. In the charts that were created for this experiment, the cattle were separated

For example, in the tables with the cattle that possess low whorls, there are four cows that received a rating of 4. Those cattle were three steers and one heifer. Also, there was a steer with a high whorl that had a rating of 2. The reasoning for this could be that those cattle were older than most of the other cattle. Although the reasoning could be much harder to track. For example, the parents of the cattle could have had a more agitated temperament, which would be imbedded in the cow’s genes. The same could go for the cattle that have a more calmed temperament. Although some may believe that the reasoning for the different behavior would have been because of hormones in the animal. However, the males that were tested are steers, which means that they do not receive the same hormones as a normal bull would. Therefore, while working with cattle always be cautious around them no matter what their whorl height is because cattle can always be