Cows spend their days doing three things, eating, sleeping, and chewing. Why do cows chew all the time? It’s all about nutrition!
Why Do Cows Chew All The Time?
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Drive past a cattle farm any time, and you’re likely to see cows doing one of three things. They will either be eating, sleeping, or chewing. A lot of the time they look like they are chewing a giant wad of gum, for all hours of the day, even when they are nowhere near food! So what gives? What the heck are these cows chewing all the time?
You’ve probably heard that cows have 4 stomachs. That’s almost right… but not exactly. Cows are ruminants, which means that they have 4 parts to their stomach. The first part (and the biggest part) is called the rumen. The rumen is like a big fermentation vat. There are lots of bacteria and protozoa that live inside the rumen and do the hard work of digesting the cow’s food.
After the rumen, there is the reticulum, the omasum, and the abomasum. These compartments have different jobs, like grinding food into smaller parts and absorbing some water and nutrients from the food. The cow’s abomasum is most similar to our stomach – it makes some acid and helps get food ready for the trip through the intestines.
But the rumen is where all the magic happens.
When a cow eats grass, hay, and even corn, she chews it up and swallows it. It goes into the rumen where the bacteria and protozoa start to digest it. Shortly after eating, a cow may look like this:
Ah, sitting quietly, mouth closed, looking like a lady.
But check back in a little while, and you’re likely to see her looking like this:
Mouth open, tongue working, chewing for all she’s worth. Looking like a kid with a mouth full of too much bubble gum.
That’s because the bacteria and protozoa in the rumen need a little more help to get all the good nutrients out of the food the cow eats. The rumen contracts, and actually sends a small amount of food back up into the cow’s mouth. This is her cud. (It’s called regurgitating. It’s sort of like a controlled vomit. Which is either really neat, or really gross. Depending on your point of view. And whether or not you’re a 5-year-old boy.) She chews and chews that regurgitated cud (for 30-45 seconds), and then she swallows it again. Then the cycle repeats over and over again.
Check out this video – watch the cow’s neck. When she stops chewing for a second, you can see her neck move when she swallows, and then you can see her neck move again when she regurgitates.
Pretty neat, huh?
The saliva in the cow’s mouth mixes with the food. The enzymes in her saliva and the grinding motion of her teeth help to break the food down even more, so the bacteria and protozoa can do a better job getting to all the nutrients.
This is called ruminating. To “ruminate” means to meditate on or to ponder; to think about over and over again. When cows “ruminate,” they are chewing their food, over and over again. All in the name of nutrition!
Even though they eat different things, beef cattle and dairy cattle both ruminate like this. Here’s a little more about what beef cattle usually eat, and what dairy cattle usually eat.
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