Cows Can Use Tools. Are We Underestimating How Smart They Are?

A cow named Veronika has made headlines around the world after researchers confirmed for the first time that cows are capable of using tools based on observations of her behavior. But Veronika is likely not the only cow whose capacities might surprise us if we only looked a little closer.

The new study, along with several other recent studies, suggests that farm animals’ cognitive abilities are greater than previously thought.

In the study, published in January in Current Biology, Austrian researchers observed a Swiss Brown cow named Veronika picking up a large broom with a horizontal brush with her mouth and using it to scratch various parts of her body. She wasn’t trained to do this; she began doing it on her own.

“The current study is distinctive in that it is, to our knowledge, the first to successfully examine tool use in farm animals,” Christian Nawroth, PhD, who studies animal welfare at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology and was not involved in the research, tells Sentient in an email.