Japanese farmers paint cows like zebras to repel blood-sucking flies

Black cows with white stripes are less likely to stomp their feet, wag their tails, or shake their heads to ward off flies than their counterparts.

Zebra-like painted cows in Japan. Photo: PLOS One

Farmers in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, are painting cows with zebra-like stripes to repel blood-sucking insects, Interesting Engineering reported on March 18. The experiment is proving effective, with painted cows showing less signs of stress than their counterparts.

Japanese Black cattle are one of four breeds used to produce high-quality wagyu beef in the country. However, they are plagued by blood-sucking insects such as horseflies and cattle flies. The stress caused by the insects is so great that some farmers say their herd’s fertility rate has dropped.

To combat this, farmers in Yamagata have been using spray paint or mild bleach to add white stripes to their black cows, making them look like zebras. This effort has been going on for more than three years. As they see the improvement in their herds, more farmers are adopting this low-cost method.

Local scientists observed painted and unpainted cows in agricultural areas, noting behavioral patterns like wagging their tails, shaking their heads, or stamping their feet to ward off flies. While unpainted cows performed these behaviors up to 16 times per minute, painted cows performed them just five times.

Local scientists have not shared details about the exact reason flies dislike striped surfaces. In 2019, a team of experts from the Aichi Agricultural Research Center in Nagakute City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, conducted a study with six cows and published the results in the journal PLOS One . The study showed that cows painted with zebra stripes could avoid attacks from blood-sucking flies, but they did not conduct any experiments to determine the specific cause.

Farmers often rely on insecticides to deal with the problem. However, insects tend to develop resistance within a decade or so, creating the need to develop new, more powerful insecticides. Striping is a cheaper, short-term solution that could evolve from the use of external marking paint to identify livestock.

Additionally, previous research has shown that striping cattle results in polarized light, which makes it difficult to detect movement, preventing insects from slowing down enough to land on the animal. This makes the method effective in preventing insect bites.

Thu Thao (According to Interesting Engineering )

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