A video of a herd of cattle responding intently to a live jazz performance has piqued curiosity. Following the video of this cultured herd, African Farming explored the music preferences of cattle – and it turns out they do not only enjoy jazz.
By Marise Schoonraad, journalist at African Farming and Landbouweekblad
Angus McIntosh, better known as “Farmer Angus” from the farm Spier outside Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, recorded the video of his son, Hamish McIntosh, captivating a herd of Limousin-Red Angus crossbred cattle with his saxophone.
“My wife and I saw a video years ago of someone playing a trombone for a herd of Black Angus cattle,” says McIntosh. When their son recently visited South Africa, he had to step into the role of Dave Koz for the cattle.
Their experiment was more than successful and although Hamish was a little “rusty”, the cattle approached eagerly, says McIntosh.
“We were still planning to take him to see how the chickens and pigs respond to the music, but unfortunately, Hamish had to fly out the next day.
“It is fascinating to observe how the cattle react to the saxophone,” says Prof. Este van Marle-Köster from the University of Pretoria’s Department of Animal Science. She recalls a study conducted in collaboration with one of her master’s students, Lize Erasmus, where cattle hearing was investigated in 2023.
“Cattle have a more refined sense of hearing than humans and they detect lower frequencies than we do,” she explains.
“It is interesting, because the decibel level of a saxophone averages between 80 and 90 when played softly. If someone plays the saxophone outdoors and the sound carries through the air, it makes perfect sense that cattle would respond positively to it,” says van Marle-Köster.
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Cows Prefer Classical Music
In the study, which focused on dairy cattle, the literature reviewed also showed that cattle prefer classical music, says van Marle-Köster. In particular, calm, flowing compositions that often include a cello – “so it makes perfect sense to me that cattle would enjoy the saxophone”.
Van Marle-Köster notes the cattle clearly responded positively by moving closer to the sound.
“There is literature where similar experiments were conducted using different genres of music. When rock or Latin American music was played, the cattle became noticeably restless. They clearly did not respond well to it.”
During the research, to determine whether cattle genuinely responded favourably to music, the animals were divided into three groups. Each group was placed in a specific environment for a month. One group was exposed to music continuously outdoors, another group only had music in the housing facilities, and the third group had no music at all, says van Marle-Köster.
The results showed that cattle exposed to music continuously had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In addition to reduced stress levels, these cattle also produced more milk.
Van Marle-Köster says it will be interesting to further investigate how different music genres affect different types of cattle.
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