Episode 8. A pirate, a confidence player and everyone’s right; animals are complicated.
Release Date: 01/28/2026
Episode 8. A pirate, a confidence player and everyone’s right; animals are complicated.
Cows and Effect
Happy New Year listener. Eight episodes in (hard to believe for many reasons) and it’s a bit different this month. There's absolutely no big swears; there's a few mediums, but not the big one. And also because we talk about lots of research papers addressing two subjects; small cows and short tails in sheep. Listeners to Michael’s “exceptional value” Pasture Pod Patreon channel will have heard about these slightly niche topics before. Do smaller cows cause less damage to soil in pastures than heavier cows? Are the intakes of cows proportional to their weight? If you breed for short...
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Episode 7. Folk dancing, pocket meat and the Malmo shipyards.
Cows and Effect
This festive episode comes out on 25th December 2025, so Happy blooming Christmas listener. If you're anything like me, the morning so far will have been; 1. Put the turkey in the oven around 06.00 hrs; 2. Check round the stock, 3. Get back to the house in time for a late morning snifter, 4. Check how the turkey is doing, 5. Turn the oven on, 6. Explain that Chistmas dinner is running late. There's some robust swearing in this one listener, including the big swear at around nineteen minutes in. Sorry about that. We know a lot of people don't like the big one, but think it's canonically...
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Episode 6. Free honey, a faraway look and a copious flow of mucus.
Cows and Effect
Hello listener. How's things? You'll be relieved to know that this episode is much shorter than the last one and really delivers on the science. Yes, that's right; back by popular demand, this is the second episode of Lab Rat Jazz Club and, this time, we hear about the work of the brilliant Professor Smith (he's the best, Paul loves him). The main paper; Smith, M.L., 2014. Xxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx index by xxxx location. PeerJ, 2, p.e338. Find Professor Smith's other work here; The Berkley paper on pain thresholds; women (not girls) vs men (cited 1,673 times!). This...
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Episode 5. Chain drives, mushroom tea and a professional.
Cows and Effect
Where to begin listener? Well, you could begin about 45 minutes into this unfeasibly long episode, because that's how long it takes to get to this fascinating research paper and it's 45 minutes of your life you will never get back. Salomon, M.J., Demarmels, R., Watts-Williams, S.J., McLaughlin, M.J., Kafle, A., Ketelsen, C., Soupir, A., Bücking, H., Cavagnaro, T.R. and van der Heijden, M.G., 2022. Global evaluation of commercial arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculants under greenhouse and field conditions. Applied Soil Ecology, 169, p.104225. Apologies listener, you will only find...
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Episode 4. A fun guy, a great judge of character and a very interesting three years drawing moss.
Cows and Effect
Do you like your agricultural scientific research sumarised in easily digestible form or described at length in mind numbing detail? Oh, OK, nevermind; how about this then? Have you ever asked yourself what happens to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal mediated phosphate supply when stressed plants stop supplying sugar-like carbon molecules to the fungi? No? Seriously? Nevertheless, buckle up and welcome to the School of Biology at Leeds University, West Yorkshire. Eee by gum, ey up, etc. Michael makes a couragous attempt at humour, based on the marvelous premise that AMF (the phosphate supplying...
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Episode 3. French cigarettes, the Motown joke and there's someone Scottish that's really annoying me.
Cows and Effect
Bored with multi species pastures episodes? Welcome to North America dear listener and a research paper that is definitely not about multi species pastures (although they get a mention in the intro). No spoilers, but it's proper science done by proper scientists. As well as the science, Michael reveals that he is a High Noon guy, Paul admits a life long obsession with Katy Jurado and Black Cat disgraces himself on mike (on microphone, not on Michael). Links Jim and Stan's paper. Polston, J.E. and Glick, S.D., 2011. *****-******* context preference following ******* conditioning in...
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Episode 2. Farmer jail, the first rule of ecology club and carry on with your dull stuff.
Cows and Effect
We’re staying in Ireland for Episode 2 and talking about a research paper that looks at four different pasture types (permanent pasture, perennial ryegrass, a six species mixture and a twelve species mixtures) under grazing. They measured yields, nutritive value and how plant species persisted and it’s all fascinating stuff (it helps, if you keep telling yourself that). There’s more. Paul cries at a boat. Michael reveals his Joel Williams man-crush. And there’s four jokes. Here are the links. First things first; a link to a biograph of Fridtof Nansen. There’s loads of stuff about...
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Episode 1. Five billion, there's no snakes in Ireland and an upside down graph.
Cows and Effect
Episode 1 dives into the science with an Irish research paper that looks at the yields of multi species pastures (along with the various different plant species that go into them) at several levels of Nitrogen (including zero). Which grasses work best in different systems? Why bother with Plantain and Chicory? Which plants drive yield? There's some chat about ewes and Red Clover and there's a smell under the table. Link to the main paper Moloney et al, 2020. Links to the other two Moloney papers in the trilogy. and Link to the Egan et al 2025 paper on plantain hoovering up...
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The Prologue; contract work, wild animals and he knows who he is.
Cows and Effect
Michael and Paul introduce themselves and explain why the world needs yet another farming podcast (it's a science podcast). There's bits about their farms, the other stuff they do and how science works and, for no obvious reason, a foray into the world of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Here's the link to Frank B. 1885. Link to the original wood wide web paper and the recent paper that says more research is needed These two might be behind a pay wall, so here's a link to a recent review of the ecological functioning of mycorrhizal networks that is definately open...
info_outlineHappy New Year listener. Eight episodes in (hard to believe for many reasons) and it’s a bit different this month. There's absolutely no big swears; there's a few mediums, but not the big one. And also because we talk about lots of research papers addressing two subjects; small cows and short tails in sheep. Listeners to Michael’s “exceptional value” Pasture Pod Patreon channel will have heard about these slightly niche topics before. Do smaller cows cause less damage to soil in pastures than heavier cows? Are the intakes of cows proportional to their weight? If you breed for short tails in sheep, will you impact lamb weights and spine lengths? These are the questions that keep Michael awake at night.
We have an email address listener. It's cowsandeffectpodcast@gmail.com
Please email your questions for the authors of the papers that we have discussed. Subject to the restraining orders, we'll try to get them lined up for Episode 12. Feel free to email in with any other questions or suggestions. Please start your emails with this phrase, "Dear Michael, loving the show. You are my favourite. It's only a shame that the other one keeps interupting you. You're the best. I love you. Oh my goodness, you're so handsome." Michael doesn't read the show notes so it will be a lovely surprise for him and make everybody else's life that bit easier.
See the Episode 7. shownotes for how to get in touch with Karin.
The three papers on the ground effects of heavy vs light cows
Fraser, M.D. and Vale, J.E., 2014. Breed type differences in hoof volume in beef suckler cows. The Future of European Grasslands, p.362. https://www.europeangrassland.org/fileadmin/documents/Infos/Printed_Matter/Proceedings/EGF2014.pdf#page=819
Negrón, M., López, I. and Dörner, J., 2019. Consequences of intensive grazing by dairy cows of contrasting live weights on volcanic ash topsoil structure and pasture dynamics. Soil and Tillage Research, 189, pp.88-97. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167198718305415?casa_token=A1nd7b22ygcAAAAA:CSyGKxQKsQlj03n9X4Ru4VMqmcvqvFXMjrMcrrhhtj9bdDXsiDM5zNFYZVbkSetlf4Dgy_cJ
Tuohy, P., Fenton, O., Holden, N.M. and Humphreys, J., 2015. The effects of treading by two breeds of dairy cow with different live weights on soil physical properties, poaching damage and herbage production on a poorly drained clay-loam soil. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 153(8), pp.1424-1436.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-agricultural-science/article/effects-of-treading-by-two-breeds-of-dairy-cow-with-different-live-weights-on-soil-physical-properties-poaching-damage-and-herbage-production-on-a-poorly-drained-clayloam-soil/4B005421D226B9499038330C38C4C082
Two books and a couple of papers on how much cows eat.
The AFRC book
Alderman, G. and Cottrill, B.R., 1996. Energy and protein requirements of ruminants.
The review paper that says that the AFRC books under estimates beef cow intakes and needs revisions. Cabezas-Garcia, E.H., Lowe, D. and Lively, F., 2021. Energy requirements of beef cattle: Current energy systems and factors influencing energy requirements for maintenance. Animals, 11(6), p.1642.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/6/1642
The paper from french France that says that Paul's cows are the best. Sepchat, B., D'hour, P. and Agabriel, J., 2017. Production laitière des vaches allaitantes: caractérisation et étude des principaux facteurs de variation. INRAE Productions Animales, 30(2), pp.139-152. https://productions-animales.org/article/view/2240/4630
The INRA book. Noziere, P., Sauvant, D. and Delaby, L., 2018. INRA feeding system for ruminants (pp. 640-p). Wageningen Academic Publishers.
Order it from your local independent book seller or; Amazon link
Moving on to short tails in sheep.
The webinar that started it all for Michael. Low Input Sheep Progeny Test: Virtual Field Day
Hannah’s paper. Hummelchen, H., Wagner, H., Brügemann, K., König, S. and Wehrend, A., 2025. Effects of Breeding for Short‐Tailedness in Sheep on Parameters of Reproduction and Lamb Development. Veterinary Medicine and Science, 11(1), p.e70138. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/vms3.70138
Scobie, D.R., O’Connell, D., Morris, C.A. and Hickey, S.M., 2007. A preliminary genetic analysis of breech and tail traits with the aim of improving the welfare of sheep. Australian Journal of Agricultural Research, 58(2), pp.161-167. https://connectsci.au/cp/article-abstract/58/2/161/128623/A-preliminary-genetic-analysis-of-breech-and-tail?redirectedFrom=fulltext
The South African one. Teubes, M., Cloete, S.W.P., Dzama, K. and Scholtz, A.J., 2023. Is there sufficient genetic variation to breed Elsenburg Merino sheep with shorter tails?. Animal Production Science, 63(11), pp.1043-1051. https://connectsci.au/an/article-abstract/63/11/1043/20642/Is-there-sufficient-genetic-variation-to-breed?redirectedFrom=fulltext
A big sample size in this one; 57,760 lambs. Hodge, M.J., Brown, D.J. and Walkom, S.F., 2025. Genetic evaluation of tail length in Australian sheep. In Proceedings of the AAABG 26th Conference (p. 407). Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics. https://www.aaabg.org/aaabghome/AAABG21papers/Greeff21237.pdf
Well done if you got this far. I’m going to have a lie down.