We tested responses of dairy cows to olfactory stimuli in the milking parlour.
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Stimuli were cloth bags with hair of the own or an alien calf or no hair.
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Primi- and pluriparous cows either reared their own calf or not while being milked.
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Response rates were generally low, but they significantly differed between stimuli.
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All cows and the calf-rearing heifers were more responsive to calf-linked stimuli.