Erin Beasley, from North Carolina State University, recently completed a research internship with the Animal Welfare Program at the UBC Dairy Education and Research Center. Her project focused on studying the relationships between grooming behavior and illness in cows around the time of calving. She found that cows with a uterine infection used a mechanical brush more frequently, which may suggest that grooming is a comforting behavior that cows use to cope with illness. Erin presented this work at the North Carolina State Undergraduate Symposium and won an award for being among the top presenters!