It turns out that cows are moody during puberty - just like us

A major breakthrough in animal psychology has revealed that cows share similar traits to humans during puberty.

Scientists have found that dairy cows experience a similar psychological and emotional time in their lives as they are growing up.

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The Royal Society of Open Science report suggested that cows have stable personalities as calves and as adults, but the in-between stage is when that personality becomes inconsistent.

Professor Nina Von Keyserlingk, told The Guardian, "Our study identified a period of inconsistency in personality traits over puberty”

Von Keyserlingk and her assistant, Heather Neave, studied calves aged one month, three months, one year, and two and a half years old.

Neave said, "Ideally, in the future, management practices would be tailored to the individual rather than the herd, so that all calves and cows have an opportunity to thrive on the farm and reach their full productive potential.”

Are cows that different to humans?

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Despite the fact that eating meat is contributing to climate change. These sorts of studies show a more emotive connection between us and our food. If cows go through puberty then this suggests that cattle are deeply emotional creatures, just like humans.

This study was based on dairy cows, who are often taken away from their mothers at early ages.

Author of a recent study called The Psychology of Cows, Lori Marino, added, "In the end it tells us that if cows and humans share so much of their psychology with each other, we need to look at cows as beings who also have feelings about being farmed and having their children taken away from them in the dairy industry."