[paul.fr]

Lets say that they get milked every day at precisely 4am, and there is a big clock in the cow shed. Would the cows begin to learn that when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 4, that is was milking time?
Ok, they may not know what a 12 and 4 are but would the remember the positions of the hands?

[neilep]

As a firm believer in empirical study I asked wifey what the time is. She said  it's 3pm !

QED.

[SquarishTriangle]

I think they know when it's milking time even without the clock. Our cows will tell you all about it...

[Karen W.]

most lactating mothers have a schedule and their milk lets down pretty regularly or else we end up with quite a mess down our fronts... so in a manner their teets dictate milking time after routine has been established,,..


I do not believe it is a visual thing although the daylight may help them sense it also!

[another_someone]

I have never heard of cows learning to read a clock, but all animals have some sort of body clock, and it can in many cases be quite precise.

In fact, part of the problem with daylight saving time is that the body clock farm animals does not naturally change when the clocks change, and simply showing them a clock that is one hour shifted back or forward is not going to change the animals innate sense of what time it should be (come to that, it does little to change my innate sense of what time it should be).

[Karen W.]

When Sarah was on the Dairy.. they never had to go get the cows  because the old cows would start coming in on their own at about 7:30 Am.. you could look out down the field and they would be coming on their own walking down the lane to the milking barn... Funny thing Sarah said they always arrived in the same order and they would file in in a line  with no pushing etc. she said rarely would they get mixed up. each day granny would bring up the rear and Junior would lead them in and the in between cows stayed in the same order as the day before.. like they knew from memory who went first. they even put their head into their appropriate head gear in the milking stalls and began to eat whilst the milkers were attached..  It was a very routine procedure and the cows would rarely get out of step! Every cow had a name.. Sarah loved her girls... She said granny cow was 16 or 17 and she always needed three buckets of grain because she was the mother load of milk production.. she provided gallons and gallons of milk every milking.. and was in great shape.... pretty old for a cow.. But she was a good one and her teats were in good shape where some of them produced little and became dog food much earlier then Grandma...

I really think their since of time was remarkable when it came to their body clock!