And with success. Because in a matter of weeks, most of the cows that took part in the training were potty trained.

Anyone who lives in the countryside has undoubtedly witnessed a cow peeing in the middle of a meadow. Because that’s what cows do. At least: most cows. Because in Germany there are a few cows that don’t just let their urine flow, but go to the toilet properly. It is the result of a real potty training that started to pay off after just a few weeks.

Successful attempt

Potty training for cows: that is not a new idea. But previous attempts to potty train cows have not been as successful. And yet it is researchers from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and the Forschungsinstitut für Nutztierbiologie (Germany) now successful. Within a few weeks they managed to get 11 of 16 calves more or less toilet trained through special potty training.

The potty training

The potty training that the researchers used is broadly similar to potty training that we humans subject toddlers and preschoolers to. For example, part of the stable was designated as a toilet area. And then the calves were placed in this room and the researchers quietly waited for the calves to urinate. As soon as the calves had urinated, they received a treat. “This is how people also train their children,” said researcher Lindsay Matthews. “They put their children on the toilet, wait for them to pee and reward them when they pee. And it turns out that this also works for calves. In a relatively short time – for some animals after just five to ten pees – they understood the link between the desired behavior and the reward.”

Cold water

But that didn’t mean the cows were potty trained. After all, this is only the case if – as soon as they feel they need to pee – they walk to their ‘toilet’ on their own and urinate there. And that is also something you can teach calves, the researchers show. They gave the calves access to the barn and toilet area and punished the cows who urinated outside the toilet by spraying a little cold water on the animals. The approach worked. “Very soon the cows themselves started to take the initiative to go to the toilet. That’s very exciting because it means they were paying attention to their bladder filling up,” Matthews said.

Potty trained

The training lasted about 15 days. At the end of the training, about three quarters of the participating calves did three quarters of their urination in the ‘cow toilet’. And most of the cows only needed 20 to 25 pees to be potty trained. And with that they actually do even better than three- and four-year-old human children. “We have shown that we can train cows very easily,” says Matthews.

Nitrogen problem

It naturally brings us to that one big question: why would you? Why is it necessary to potty train cows? The researchers have good reasons for this. “Cattle urine is a major cause of our nitrogen problem,” says Matthews. Because urine from cows is rich in nitrogen. And when it seeps into the ground and is broken down there, two nasty substances are created: nitrate and nitrous oxide. Nitrate ends up in lakes and rivers, where it leads, among other things, to the luxuriant proliferation of algae. And nitrous oxide is a very potent greenhouse gas that also lingers in the atmosphere for a long time. By toilet training cows and collecting their urine in a specially designed area, nitrogen and its decomposition products can be prevented from ending up in nature and the atmosphere.

Crazy Scientists

“People’s first reaction is ‘mad scientists’,” admits Matthews. But it’s not such a bad idea to potty train cows. “Cows urinate more when they wake up in the morning, showing that they are able to hold urine. There is nothing in their neurophysiology to clearly distinguish them from animals – such as horses, monkeys and cats – which can also learn to toilet in desired places.” And the planet also benefits from it. “Even if we can only collect 10 or 20 percent of the pee, we could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nitrate leakage,” notes researcher Douglas Elliffe.

scale up

The big challenge now is to scale up potty training. After all, there are millions of cows worldwide that are not yet toilet trained. Whether farmers are waiting for labour-intensive potty training is, of course, still open to question. The researchers would therefore like to automate the training as much as possible, for example by working with sensors that can detect urine and systems that automatically release rewards when a cow pees on the toilet. In addition, the possibilities offered by the collected urine must also be considered; perhaps some of its components can be reused.

Although there is still plenty of work to be done, researcher Jan Langbein is optimistic that this investigation the lives of many a cow will change forever. “(I hope, ed.) that in a few years all cows will go to the toilet.”