1. Cows change colour

A calf might be a very different colour to the bull or cow he or she grows up to be. Rosamund Young has witnessed the youngsters’ skin tones altering as they mature: “They do seem to change colour - just like children can be born blonde and then they go a bit darker.”

Fascinatingly, a Holstein cow’s spots are like a fingerprint: no two cows have exactly the same pattern of black and white spots.

2. Cow personalities are as varied as ours

Observing one particularly placid cow, Rosamund states, “They’re all so different… she’s very friendly and very sweet-natured and you can always go and stroke her… she’s obviously happy.” Other cows might be more boisterous. And they can be highly intelligent or slow to understand, vain and proud, considerate, shy or more bossy, and inventive. “I do think they need to be respected as having massive differences – as many differences as us, quite probably,” says Rosamund. She suspects they may have “a whole wide range of emotions.”

Interestingly, the farmer’s observations may be supported by science: In 2009, researchers from the U.S. Department of agriculture announced that they’d successfully mapped the bovine genome, discovering that cattle have around 22,000 genes - and a staggering 80% are shared with humans.