What is rumination?
In our last post, we talked about what cows eat. Today, we are going to go over a few facts about what happens to the food that the cows eat.
Here is what you should know-
- Have you ever heard that cows have 4 stomachs? That’s not exactly true. A cow only has one stomach, but it has four different compartments. The omasum, abomasum, reticulum, and rumen. Each compartment does a different part of the digestion process.
- The rumen is the biggest compartment and acts like a big fermentation vat. The good bacteria in the cow’s gut help break down feed. The heat created from fermentation is one reason cows prefer cool weather over hot weather.
- Animals that have these four-compartment stomachs are called “Ruminants”. Some other animals that are also ruminants are deer, buffalo, goats, moose, and antelope.
- A content cow is a cow that is chewing her cud. As part of the digestion process, a cow will burp up some of the feed she has eaten and chew it again. This helps to break down the feed even more and helps her keep a healthy gut.
- One of the ways we monitor the health of our cows is by monitoring their rumination. A cow that isn’t chewing her cud is a cow that isn’t feeling well.
- One of the coolest things about ruminants is that they can eat ingredients that humans cannot and make them into meat and milk.