The Moos Room™

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Speaker 2
Welcome, everybody to The Moos Room. Emily and Bradley here. Of course. And this week we are joined by a guest, a guest I am really excited about. We're going to be talking about a pretty cool topic. So we are joined by Jennifer Van Os with University of Wisconsin Extension. Welcome, Jennifer.

00;01;20;17 - 00;01;22;11
Jennifer
Thank you. Happy to be here.

00;01;22;13 - 00;01;26;20
Emily
And Jennifer, maybe just briefly tell us what you do for the University of Wisconsin.

00;01;26;22 - 00;01;45;02
Jennifer
I'm an assistant professor and extension specialist in animal welfare, focusing on dairy cattle. So I've been here in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences at UW Madison for coming up on seven years now, and I do applied research to try to help the dairy industry solve real world challenges around animal welfare and animal care.

00;01;45;03 - 00;02;05;17
Emily
Awesome. And yeah, we we're going to be talking about this really exciting project. That you've been working on recently around animal welfare. But we'll leave that hanging as a teaser for a minute here. And before we get into it, you know, you are a guest. Jennifer. And so we do have our super secret guest questions that we are going to ask you.

00;02;05;20 - 00;02;24;19
Emily
And I will assure you, despite what Bradley may say, there are no wrong answers. So the there's going to be two questions. The first question is, what is your favorite breed of beef cattle? Beef cattle.

00;02;24;22 - 00;02;29;09
Emily
What they're doing.

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Jennifer
Can I can I cheat and answer dairy cattle instead? Why beef cattle? I'm curious.

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Emily
Just. Just answer the beef cattle question. We have another question coming.

00;02;38;08 - 00;02;44;11
Brad
We have a lot of, beef, beef producers and veterinarians, stuff that listen. So we're we're just curious.

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Jennifer
Well, now you have to delete my initial reaction because I need time to think. All right. I'm going to cheat. And I'm actually going to say Holsteins, because Holsteins are also part of the beef industry as their sort of second career. So I think good old Holstein.

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Brad
There is nothing wrong with that. We do have some dairy breeds that are in the beef cattle category because of that.

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Emily
Yes, and you know, most listeners know I buy my beef, from my brother directly. And yeah, that's all Holstein steers. So so Holstein is basically the only beef I eat. So I think that's a great answer.

00;03;22;07 - 00;03;46;29
Brad
Well, here we go. So I'll, I'll run down the tallies just so you can know. So we do keep a running count Jennifer Black Angus 19 Herford 14. Black Baldy which could be Holstein cross as well five. Scottish Highlander five. Charlie four. Red Angus four. Shorthorn three Simmental two. Belted Galloway two, Brahma two, stabilizer one and the rest with one.

00;03;46;29 - 00;03;58;05
Brad
Kelvin Kenny and the Jersey Holstein Belgian Blue Brangus Piedmontese White Park, miniature Scottish Highlander and a Charlie Red Angus Cross.

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Jennifer
Wow. And do people usually base it on the meat or just they think the breed looks cool? What do people to give their reasons?

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Emily
I think it's.

00;04;07;19 - 00;04;08;15
Brad
Everything under the.

00;04;08;15 - 00;04;23;24
Emily
Sun. Yeah. Which one they have the most fondness over. You know which one they showed in forage? Whatever. So everybody has their own reasons. So with that, the second question, this one should be a little easier. This is what is your favorite breed of dairy cattle.

00;04;23;29 - 00;04;36;22
Jennifer
Actually this is going to sound really generic, but my favorite is also the Holstein. I feel like people kind of see them as generic and they just don't get enough credit. But Holsteins are awesome. They are my favorite.

00;04;36;24 - 00;04;51;04
Emily
Hey, I agree with you Jennifer. I was raised a Holstein girl, you know, and I believe they are the classic. They are the original, right? Black and white is timeless. I Brad Brad would say that's the wrong answer because he's a Jersey guy.

00;04;51;07 - 00;05;11;29
Brad
Okay, here's the tally. So Holstein is still in first with 27 jersey 20. That is the correct answer. Brown Swiss 13 and then Billy yard three Dutch belted three. Guernsey three. Ayrshire three. Milking Shorthorn three and Normandy two.

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Jennifer
I think those are the breeds, you know, they're very beautiful. But yeah, Holsteins, they do a good job.

00;05;17;02 - 00;05;21;06
Brad
They do, they do, they are, they are the workhorse of the dairy industry.

00;05;21;08 - 00;05;40;22
Emily
All right. Well, you know, now that we got the important business out of the way, well we'll move on to the other business. So like I mentioned, you know, we have Jennifer here today to talk about, a project that she has been working on that I believe recently launched. It's something that caught both mine and Brad's attention.

00;05;40;24 - 00;06;01;14
Emily
I believe it was an article on the Dairy Star. That's how I first heard about it. And we are talking, of course, about the new app game called Moving Cows. I will give a short, bad explanation, and then I will turn it over to Jennifer to give a longer good explanation. But it is a app you can download on a smartphone.

00;06;01;17 - 00;06;23;25
Emily
And it is a game you play and it simulates, how to properly move cows. So it teaches good animal handling practices. So the safety person in me loves this. The child at heart in me also loves this because it's, you know, a fun way to learn about this. So again, that's my kind of short and bad explanation.

00;06;23;25 - 00;06;34;08
Emily
So I'll let Jennifer jump in and and talk a little more about moving cows and, and we'll just, yeah, chat about it and ask some questions along the way.

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Jennifer
I, I thought that that was a perfectly accurate explanation. Yeah. So we, we just passed the one year anniversary of its launch, and it is a free app that works on smartphones and tablets, any kind of device that has access to an app store, whether you're an Apple user or an Android user, you can download it. So just go into your Play Store or App store and search for moving cows ammo moving.

00;06;57;18 - 00;07;16;29
Jennifer
And that's right. It's meant to be an educational game that's also fun and it's completely free. There are no ads. The whole purpose was to get good information into the hands of people who work on dairy farms, although we also think other types of people, even if you're not working on a farm, could benefit by practicing some of these basic cow handling principles.

00;07;17;02 - 00;07;36;21
Emily
You know, and there's a lot to dive into with this. But right off the bat, you know, something I really like about it is I have played the game. I it's a lot of fun. Right. And it's also a good refresher for me, you know. But what I like about it is you can maybe watch a video or watch a demonstration of somebody moving cows.

00;07;36;23 - 00;08;01;07
Emily
But it gives you that opportunity to really make those decisions and put yourself in that situation of, you know, how do you actually, you know, physically move around with these cows in a pen? And again, from a safety standpoint, you get that practice without being in a pen with a live animals first. Which, you know, I think is really great too.

00;08;01;07 - 00;08;05;11
Emily
There's just there's a lot to be excited about for this.

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Jennifer
I'm really glad you picked up on that, because that was part of our hope and our rationale for doing it as a game. So there are a lot of really good resources out there with correct information, but with videos and other resources like that, they're what we call passive modality. So the information flow is one way you're passively taking it in.

00;08;23;09 - 00;08;55;16
Jennifer
Whereas with a game or simulation, when you're being more active and so you're directly engaging and participating in this process of doing the simulation. And so we thought this could be a way to have people kind of bridge the gap between learning the information and then putting it into practice with real cows. And you brought up safety. So when we came up with this idea, we looked at other examples in the scientific literature, and there were examples teaching people about farm safety or about spatial awareness when writing bicycles or operating submarines.

00;08;55;16 - 00;09;16;04
Jennifer
But there wasn't anything with livestock handling yet. But we thought, okay, there's the technology is here now, there's some of these principles that have been applied in other settings. And so maybe we could build this game as a proof of concept that you can practice cow handling in this safe setting. And I think another interesting thing that you mentioned, Emily, was making these decisions.

00;09;16;06 - 00;09;36;20
Jennifer
And that was something, you know, I wasn't a game designer before we partnered with a company that has expertise in putting together educational games all day. They had never done one in this specific context. And some of those principles we discussed were about how do you make an educational game? How much do you show people or tell them versus have them just figure out on their own?

00;09;36;23 - 00;09;47;25
Jennifer
And so that was a learning process for us. But that has to do with these principles about how people can learn in this. More open ended and active and engaging kind of setting like the game.

00;09;47;27 - 00;10;09;24
Emily
And, you know, one other thing I kind of want to just address upfront, because I also like this about it is in some respects, right. With a game, it's very visual. It takes away quite a bit. Not all of the language barriers. There is some reading in the game, but I do believe you can also get that written text in Spanish as well, right?

00;10;09;26 - 00;10;31;12
Jennifer
Absolutely. And that was one of our main goals, was to approach this from the start as a bilingual tool, English and Spanish. And so we didn't want the Spanish to be an afterthought since we know depending on your region, a lot of people working on dairy farms primarily speak Spanish rather than English, and so we needed to make sure it was relevant and accessible to that audience.

00;10;31;19 - 00;10;47;26
Jennifer
So when you first actually, you can switch back and forth at any time during the game, but when you start playing it for the first time, it will ask you which language you want to play it in. So if you select Spanish, the text on the screen and the voiceover narration are both in Spanish, and we tried to minimize the amount of written text.

00;10;47;26 - 00;11;10;29
Jennifer
So there is some. But we really wanted to make sure that if there was differences in literacy levels among different people, that that wouldn't present too much of a challenge for people being able to get through it, which also means that kids can also play it since there's not so much text. And so it turns out we've tested it with a lot of different kinds of audiences, and we're pretty optimistic it could be helpful for a lot of different types of learners.

00;11;11;01 - 00;11;30;29
Brad
One thing that I like about this game and I've I've played with it, and of course I've tried to get kicked and things like that. Of course, you know, you, you try to, to maybe push the limit just to see what happens. Because I think that helps us learn. But I really like that you have the white zone of the cow around.

00;11;30;29 - 00;11;50;06
Brad
It's a circle and you have a, a read portion that where it's kind of where the cow can't see you and it's interesting because I think we do forget about the white zones of a cow when we're trying to move them, whether it's out of the pasture or in the barn or to the milking parlor. So I think it gives a really good idea.

00;11;50;06 - 00;12;02;18
Brad
And sometimes it's difficult to help maneuver the cows, even it's kind of real world situation, because it's not easy to do it in the real world. And sometimes it's not easy to do in the game either.

00;12;02;21 - 00;12;21;24
Jennifer
Yeah, and that was, an advantage we saw of the game. And of course you can get this with videos. Do we call it visual augmentation. Or you can add these different layers over the image. So we have the circle of the flight zone visualized. And I think the nice thing is it is interactive. And so you can see that principle as well at work as you approach the cow.

00;12;21;24 - 00;12;42;22
Jennifer
So we have an example of a cow with a smaller flight zone where she lets you get closer to her, and then a more fearful cow with a larger flies on. You see, she starts moving away more quickly before you get so close, and then in later levels we toggle that off. So you have to remember this imaginary zone around the cow, but you get the chance to practice with that.

00;12;42;22 - 00;13;00;07
Jennifer
On first. And the idea there is to help people kind of put those principles together, because in real life I say it's like a dance, right? Like you take a step forward, the cow takes a step away. And we wanted people to be able to get a feel for that in this virtual environment. And the other thing you mentioned was about, you know, trying to get kicked.

00;13;00;07 - 00;13;19;14
Jennifer
And so that was part of what we learned when we were working with this company, Filament Games, about educational game design, where there's a lot of different gameplay styles. So when people play the game, no two people have the exact same experience. And actually, even if you play it multiple times, it'll go a little bit differently. But there are certain things we force people to do.

00;13;19;14 - 00;13;34;25
Jennifer
So in one of the early levels we have, you do it the wrong way, deliberately so that you can learn the consequences. And some people get really frustrated because they want to be perfect and follow all the rules, and they know that's not what they're supposed to do, and they complain to me, you made me do it the wrong way, and I got dinged.

00;13;34;25 - 00;13;58;24
Jennifer
And that's a deliberate part of the game design, because we want people to do that and learn from their mistakes, which you can't always do in a real life training, because there you could suffer real consequences. You could get injured, the cow could get injured or stressed. And so that's a nice thing about a game. But the other thing about that is because people learn in different ways, the game gives them that flexibility, and there aren't these real life consequences.

00;13;58;26 - 00;14;03;21
Jennifer
So I think that that is another nice aspect of this type of learning interface.

00;14;03;25 - 00;14;31;18
Emily
And, you know, Jennifer, you just mentioned something that leads right into my next, point question. Whatever you want to say. And you mentioned, you know, causing stress on the cows. Another feature of the game that I really like and is it appears to be a layer that's kind of added as you continue through the levels is, there's like a stress meter that you have to watch for the cows and also a stress meter for you, the human moving them.

00;14;31;21 - 00;15;00;15
Emily
And so, you know, at the end of the level, it takes into account how much stress you caused. And then you actually it shows you how much milk production you got, from how well or poorly you handled the cows. And so I think that's just a great reinforcement to about, you know, it's not just the safety piece, but also stress reduction for the animals and how that impacts all sorts of things, the way they move, how much they produce, etc..

00;15;00;18 - 00;15;16;15
Emily
So, you know, that was an interesting piece to see that also kind of added in as you continued through of like, okay, we also need to be thinking about the stress level of the animal. And so yeah, it kind of builds those skills as you go through of the different things you need to be thinking about.

00;15;16;18 - 00;15;37;08
Jennifer
That's exactly right. And I think what you nailed was that was our primary learning objective. So we decided for this first version of the game since it hadn't been done before. We wanted to stick with this really routine cow movement to and from a milking parlor. But one of the main things we wanted people to take away is that your actions directly affect the cows reactions.

00;15;37;08 - 00;16;03;24
Jennifer
And because cows are a prey species, if we act in a threatening way, it causes them to have this prey response like a fight or flight reaction, which causes this physiological stress response that we know can inhibit milk yield. And so that that cascade is exactly what you just mentioned, where if you use negative handling actions, you'll see on the screen a little the designers call them cow mugs or emojis, something like that.

00;16;03;24 - 00;16;20;24
Jennifer
A little a little cow head will float up showing which cows you've stressed out. So say you shout. It can actually be multiple cows that get stressed out. Or if you use physical force on a cow, then you'll see that appear above her head. But then what you're referring to is these cumulative stress meters on the corner of the screen.

00;16;21;00 - 00;16;38;27
Jennifer
That'll show you your effect across all of these cows through the whole level. So you get this visual indicator. And then at the end, it summarizes how that cumulative stress level affected milk production. And what's interesting is we did a little bit of research around this with people who are helping us test it out. And before we play, they play the game.

00;16;38;27 - 00;17;00;10
Jennifer
We asked them, in your opinion, to what extent do you think your actions could potentially affect cow stress? And to what extent do you think that handling could affect milk production? And what was interesting was on average, people thought that their handling had a large effect on milk production. I think because they've learned this on the job, but they thought that their effect on cow stress was less.

00;17;00;13 - 00;17;24;02
Jennifer
Even though we know that biologically it's that stress is what then mediates the milk production. And so I think that that is a learning opportunity where in the game you see that, okay. Actually you cause stress first and then that's what limits milk production. So then we also assessed that afterwards and we didn't see a significant change. But that's something that we hope that people will take home by playing the game.

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Brad
Well that's pretty interesting and gives a good picture of that. So you've taken this on farms. What is the reception been like in in the industry and on farms for people that are using this?

00;17;36;22 - 00;17;57;12
Jennifer
Yeah. So during the research phase I guess I'll back up. So when we were designing this game, we didn't want it to be something that we made here within the university and then took out to the industry and said, here you go, hope you like it. We wanted to involve people from the Wisconsin dairy community from the very start, because if this was going to be something relevant and helpful to them, their voices need to be represented.

00;17;57;17 - 00;18;15;11
Jennifer
So we had several phases of research where we took prototypes out and then an almost finished version out to farms and various stages of testing. So actually the first version of the game was finished almost two years ago, but we decided not to release it into the app stores at that time because we wanted to test to see is it doing what we intended.

00;18;15;11 - 00;18;31;06
Jennifer
What do people who work on farms actually think of it? And so as we were doing that research, one thing that was important to me is that I not be there because there could be this social pressure where they knew that I design the game and they wanted to be polite and say nice things. And so I made sure that I wasn't there.

00;18;31;06 - 00;18;56;24
Jennifer
So I had collaborators who actually went out and collected those data so that people could speak freely. But on the whole, the reception was very positive and I was very pleased to see that. People thought it was pretty entertaining, a good amount of challenge. And they the important result was that they not only thought it could be useful for new people with very little cow handling experience, but also for people who already have experience as a refresher.

00;18;57;01 - 00;19;12;21
Jennifer
And that's important because that is an industry expectation. And that's something we can talk about later. And of course, there's individual variation. So there are some people who said they never want to play it again. Some people who said they want to play it all the time. But on average, people said that they would be interested in playing it at least occasionally.

00;19;12;21 - 00;19;38;28
Jennifer
And again, that that's important to us because there is this annual industry expectation or people need continuing education on stock mentorship. And so that was during the research phase, and we're still working on getting the results from those evaluations published. Since its launch, I'm only able to see quantitative metrics, so I can see how many people download the game on Apple devices, on Android devices, what countries are represented.

00;19;38;28 - 00;19;59;14
Jennifer
So the last time I checked, it was over 16,000 people around the world, across more than 100 countries. Even though it's only available in English and Spanish. People were playing it all over the place, so that's really exciting. But I everything's anonymous, so I have no idea how many people are actually working on a farm or if they're schoolchildren or just adults playing it for fun.

00;19;59;14 - 00;20;16;09
Jennifer
I don't get that information unless people reach out to me. So I love it when people email me or talk to me at conferences or meetings or whatever. And so I have received some really nice testimonials from people who say that they are using it in their on farm training as part of their onboarding for new hires, for example.

00;20;16;09 - 00;20;19;20
Jennifer
And so that kind of feedback means a lot to me. It's very helpful.

00;20;19;22 - 00;20;39;10
Brad
Yeah, that's awesome that there's people all over the world interested in this game. And and like you said, Jennifer, it's it is part of the farm animal care program. And you can use that as part of your annual continuing education, for the farm program. And this is approved to do that. So that's that's great.

00;20;39;16 - 00;20;59;03
Jennifer
Yeah, that's exactly right. And so anybody who works on a dairy farm in the US who directly interacts with animals needs to have annual continuing education on stock mentorship. So the farm program approved moving cows fulfilling that. So when you play it you get a certificate of completion. So if you download the game at the beginning, it asks for your name each time you play it.

00;20;59;03 - 00;21;11;17
Jennifer
That is not saved anywhere except for on your own phone or tablet. And that's to generate that certificate of completion. So it's totally anonymous. I never see any of that information and it's just to fulfill the farm program expectations.

00;21;11;19 - 00;21;34;20
Brad
And I know we will be using it on our university dairy as far as continuing education. Now, no doubt about it, after I've played it and looked through it, I think it will help our employees and Milkers really understand it. Obviously, we all think that we understand animal behavior and movement, but we need the continuing education all the time as a refresher to help.

00;21;34;20 - 00;21;38;14
Brad
And I think this app does that for everybody.

00;21;38;16 - 00;21;39;29
Jennifer
Thanks. I'm so glad to hear that.

00;21;40;02 - 00;21;56;14
Emily
You know, so lots of exciting things happening. And it kind of I could hear you hinting at, you know, what you were starting with for right now for this current version. So what do we have to look forward to? You know, what's next for moving cows? Is there a new version that might be coming out in the future?

00;21;56;18 - 00;22;13;28
Jennifer
No concrete plans yet. I would love to take this further. So with the current version of the game, we're pretty happy with it. Of course, it's not perfect. We have a whole list of things we'd like to make even better if we had the funding, but we also have a list of ideas for how we could expand and build upon what we've established.

00;22;13;28 - 00;22;34;22
Jennifer
So this was a proof of concept, and we're happy that even as a proof of concept, we think it's useful if it fills the farm program expectations. But it really focuses on this routine daily movement of cows to and from the milking parlor. We do have a range of barn environments represented, so we have a parallel parlor. We actually have a pasture paddock where people practice.

00;22;34;22 - 00;22;57;28
Jennifer
We have a freestyle pen. But this is just this basic routine place of daily handling. And we know that in real life, people have to do a lot more complex cow handling. And there's a lot of different scenarios where people might benefit from some practice. So we had some ideas that we came up with here internally. So one of my major collaborators is Doctor Nigel Cook from our UW Madison vet school.

00;22;58;03 - 00;23;16;16
Jennifer
So he and I put our heads together. We have this whole list. But then when we went out to farms to test the prototype of the game and then version one of the game, we asked people, where do you think a game like this could help you and other aspects of your job? And some of the things they identified were the same as what we had.

00;23;16;16 - 00;23;35;22
Jennifer
So, for example, loading cattle on and off a trailer or into a rough shoot, handling on ambulatory or down cattle, that's a really challenging situation that ideally doesn't come up a lot, so you don't get a lot of practice. But one of the surprises was many employees said that they feel nervous in the maternity pen, and we hadn't even thought of that.

00;23;35;22 - 00;23;52;29
Jennifer
And so I think that that's an example of why it's important to do this participatory research where you involve the people who are going to use this tool in giving us feedback and telling us what our next direction should be. And so we had people saying, I get nervous because I'm in there trying to do something, and I have to turn my back on a cow.

00;23;52;29 - 00;24;10;09
Jennifer
And I really would like to be able to practice this more in a safe setting where there aren't real life consequences. And so that would be something next on our list. I've also had people ask me, well, what about beef cattle? The principles are the same, right? They're the same species. Or what about swine or other examples like that.

00;24;10;09 - 00;24;27;21
Jennifer
And so I think we've established that the technology is definitely here. We have experience now with game design. We have this whole list of scenarios that people want practice with. I think the sky's the limit, but it would really just take funding. So if anybody out there would love to be a partner in this, please reach out.

00;24;27;23 - 00;24;49;05
Emily
All right. Well, you know, we have talked about a lot of things, with this app today. So I think we are going to wrap it there. Jennifer, thank you so much for for coming on and sharing about this app and this game. I think that it's, you know, again, just a great educational opportunity for a lot of different types of people.

00;24;49;05 - 00;25;12;28
Emily
So if you are interested in learning more, you can find the app in both, Android and Apple app stores. It's moving cows, mobbing cows. Also, if you just want to learn more about it, you can look it up on Google. That's what I have done. So if you just want to learn more about it, you can do that as well.

00;25;13;01 - 00;25;20;04
Emily
And is there anything else you want to share, Jennifer, as far as information or where people can find stuff?

00;25;20;07 - 00;25;33;26
Jennifer
Nope. If anybody does have feedback or questions that they're welcome to reach out to me. And that's Jennifer Van onset. UW Madison. So if you just search me online, you'll be able to find my website. And I love hearing from people. So thanks again for having me.

00;25;34;02 - 00;25;59;26
Emily
Yes. So please reach out to Jennifer. You can also reach out to us if you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals about today's episode. You can find us, at the newsroom at Umkc. Edu, find us on the web extension.edu and find Bradley on Instagram at, Rock dairy. Thanks for listening. And thanks again, Jennifer, for joining us today.

00;25;59;29 - 00;26;04;08
Jennifer
Thank you guys.