Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Waterbeds: They Do the Milk Good.
Aired January 07, 2002 - 08:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A question I often ask myself -- what do milk and waterbeds have to do with each other? Well, if the waterbeds are located in a barn, maybe just more than you think.
CNN's Jeanne Moos is here to milk this udderly fascinating story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Farmers who find their cows tossing and turning, can now turn to the latest in bovine bedding.
DEAN THRONDSEN, RELATIVE PRODUCTS, LLC: What this is, is it's a waterbed for cows.
MOOS: For cows?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heck, I haven't even got one.
MOOS: But over 100 cows have, here at Woodhill Farm in Hampton, Connecticut.
AL CAHILL, CO-OWNER, WOODHILL FARM: Ten gallons of water and ten gallons of windshield washer fluid, like you add to your car....
MOOS (on camera): You're kidding?
CAHILL: Right, you know, so it won't..
MOOS: ...Freeze.
(voice-over): The marriage was cold, but the waterbed wasn't in the film "The Ice Storm."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry. Hell, we've got to trade this thing in for a normal bed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just be careful.
MOOS: Cows have to be careful merely lying down.
THRONDSEN: When that cow goes down, I mean, it's 1,500 pounds of falling flesh.
MOOS: They're always getting scrapes and sores. Waterbeds are supposed to prevent that.
THRONDSEN: She's landing on a pillow of water.
MOOS: And farmers know that the more comfortable the cow -- the more milk she'll produce. So you see ads in farm publications for rubber padding like the "DuraBed" and the Pasture Mat." But the waterbed is the latest. It originated in England.
CAHILL: We add some saw dust on top it makes it attractive to them, and it's -- you know, it's like a linen on a mattress.
MOOS: Half of Al Cahill's herd still reclines on old-fashioned sand. But sand is expensive to replenish and hard to maintain. So farmers are starting to roll out the waterbeds and fill them up at about a cost of about 200 bucks a stall. How do they know the cows like them?
KEVIN BURNHAM, FARMHAND: Because they lay on them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're a lot of cleaner. I'm sure they like to be cleaner. You know what I mean?
MOOS (on camera): Reporter: yes, sure.
(voice-over): We're told, if there aren't enough waterbeds to go around...
THRONDSEN: The cows will line up behind the waterbeds and wait for one to get up.
MOOS: Al himself has slept on a waterbed for years.
CAHILL: I've enjoyed my waterbed so I knew they would.
MOOS: No chance the cows will mutilate their waterbeds like Edward Scissorhands did.
Cow waterbeds are tough.
CAHILL: You won't break it. If the cows don't break it, they won't -- you won't.
MOOS: Of course not every cow has the hots for waterbeds or beds of any kind.
CAHILL: We have a noncompliant soul here who refuses to use any stall.
MOOS: But cows who have a beef with their bedding may fall for waterbeds.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Did you check out the udder on that cow? My god. It's making me sweat.
MOOS: I'm told that udders can weigh as much as 60 pounds.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: No!
COOPER: Don't I know it.
MOOS: Do you?
ZAHN: I'll tell you. I love this story, and I think Jeanne thought I was nuts when I found this in the paper.
MOOS: Yeah, well you weren't the one who had to walk around in cow manure for three hours.
COOPER: That's right, you had change your boots, didn't you?
MOOS: Yeah, I did.
ZAHN: But it works, right?
MOOS: Well, there are studies that show that cows that are more comfortable give more milk. Now, there aren't studies that show waterbeds per se make them give more milk. But, as long as the cow is less stressed out -- cows are affected by stress -- and if they're stressed out they give less milk. So the idea is to make them comfortable.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Next step will be vibrating waterbeds, where you put quarter in.
MOOS: They actually do massage on cows. Or they've done a study and the cows loved it. They said it was like a car wash with brushes on the skin of the cow.
ZAHN: Next step is AOL-Time-Warner getting us all these waterbeds and lining the hallways the next time we pull a 24-hour shift. Okay, thanks, Jeanne.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
