What better way to wake up cows in the early morning than with a smooth trombone cover of a catchy pop song? Farmer Derek Klingenberg, who is also a musician, found an easy and fun way to round up his herd of 380 heifers: by playing Lorde’s hit song, “Royals.”
Kligenberg, who operates Kligenberg Farms Studios in Kansas, regularly uploads YouTube videos of his early morning serenades. Other covers include a poppy version of “Old MacDonald” and a parody of “What Does the Fox Say?” by Ylvis.
“I’ve been going out there the past week to “cube” the cattle. We feed them a treat so it is easier to gather them when we round them up later this week,” Kligenberg wrote on his Facebook page, “Yesterday morning was so beautiful. I left very early in the morning. There is something wonderful about playing a trombone in the middle of a prairie to 380 heifers.”
Though Kligenberg may be playing music for his own amusement, cows actually find music relaxing, and have been proven to produce more milk when they hear certain music. Researchers at the Music Research Group at the University of Leicester School of Psychology found that playing classical music can cause cows to produce a little more than an extra pint of milk. After testing their theory on 1,000 cows, the researchers found that Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” were particularly effective songs for increasing milk production. Maybe Kligenberg should play those next.
Photo Credit: YouTube
Erica Mixon
Erica Mixon is an editorial intern at Culture. Mixon is also the arts editor of Emerson College's student-run newspaper, the Berkeley Beacon, and editor in chief of an upcoming human resources blog, HRTalentManagement. While Erica is not editing or writing, she enjoys spending time in her hometown of Ogunquit, Maine.
