Video: A Cow Just Used A Tool. Meet Itch-Scratching Veronika

The first known case of tool use in cattle, a behaviour long thought to be beyond the cognitive abilities of cows, has been studied, at least ten years after it was first observed.  

A decade ago, a baker in a remote mountain village in southern Austria spotted something curious in his cowshed. One of his cows, Veronika, wasn't just scratching an itch; she was doing it with a tool, a skill previously seen only in humans and chimpanzees.

"When Veronika had an itch, she would grab a stick in her mouth and use it to scratch her body," said Veronika's owner, Witgar Wiegele, who runs a mill and bakes bread and desserts. 

Dorothy Fragaszy, a comparative psychologist at the University of Georgia, who studies the behaviour in monkeys, said, "I'm so glad someone found this," adding that she was convinced that Veronika had mastered this technique.

In the video, the cow is seen picking up a broom and using it to scratch herself in two different ways. In one clip, she rubs her body with the bristled end of the broom; in another, she flips it and uses the stick end.

About a decade ago, a baker in a small mountainous village in southern Austria noticed his cow doing something unusual. When Veronika had an itch, she would grab a stick in her mouth and use it to scratch her body. Over the years, the brown bovid's technique improved. She could… pic.twitter.com/H4EbuU98xh

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Fragaszy mentioned the discovery could change how scientists viewed cows and other farm animals. "I think this will make scientists pay a lot more attention to cows and other livestock," she added.

Wiegele revealed that over the years, Veronika refined her technique, handling objects as large as brooms and rakes.

"Over the years, the brown bovid's technique improved," said Wiegele. "She could pick up objects as large as a broom or rake and move them around with her prehensile tongue, changing their length and orientation to ensure the best possible scratch," he added.

Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, first learned about Veronika only last summer. At the time, she had finished writing a book on tool use in animals when a friend, who knew the Austrian baker, sent her a video of the 13-year-old cow.

Initially, Auersperg was skeptical and thought of testing Veronika's behaviour. She said that true tool use must meet three clear conditions. First, the object must act as an extension of the animal's body. Second, the tool must help the animal do something it would otherwise struggle to do, and third, the animal must actively adjust or position the tool so it works properly.

To test whether Veronika met these standards, Auersperg and her postdoctoral researcher, Antonio Osuna-Mascaro, travelled five hours to the cow's home in the village of Notsch im Gailtal. Wiegele handed Veronika a stick to see what she would do with it. Without any hesitation, she picked it up and began scratching herself.

They studied Veronika's behaviour through 70 tests, and in each trial, Mascaro placed a strong deck brush in front of her to see how she would react. In almost every test, Veronika clearly used the brush as a tool, according to Science.org.

She would curl her long tongue around the handle, lift the brush, and turn it so the bristled end touched her body. She then adjusted the length of the broom so she could scratch different parts of her back that are normally hard to reach, and in some cases, flipped the brush around and rubbed herself with the smooth, blunt handle.

"These are clever and emotional animals. They deserve better than what we give them," said Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at the Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology.