Cows in Russia are kept for milk and meat, these animals are classified as artiodactyl ruminants, and the thing is that really cows constantly chew.
It is known that cows chew food for a very long time, so the process of eating it can drag on almost all day. The reason for such a long way of eating grass lies in the physiology of the animal, the structure of its stomach.
Atavisms of the structure
The ancient ancestors of cows were absolutely defenseless, because they did not know how to run quickly or fight back, because they did not have fangs, or claws, or a developed musculoskeletal system. The ancestors of the cows were apathetic, inactive and spent most of their lives lying in a shelter. The only way to survive in such a situation was a kind of evolution of the animal's gastrointestinal system.
The cow has a completely unusual stomach, which consists of 5 sections: rumen, mesh, omasum, abomasum and intestines. Such a stomach allowed and allows you to grab food, swallow and leave so that the predators did not have time to catch it. And only then, in a safe place, did the cows begin to chew their food.
Cow Digestive Mechanism
The plant food received by the cow is even today first sent to the rumen and undergoes a short fermentation process, and then it turns out to be in the net, rolls into herbal chewing gum and only from there returns to the mouth, where it is chewed for a long time, slowly. This gives the impression that the cow is constantly chewing something.
The rumen of a cow is huge, it can hold up to 120 kilograms of food and store it for up to two days.
By the way, cows have no upper teeth, and the upper gums are completely hard. They do not chew, but grind food with it. At this stage of grinding, the main grinding of the herbal gum takes place: the cow chews it for a long time, then swallows it, and the food is sent to the "book", and then to the abomasum, where the process of its assimilation takes place. Unlike the rumen, the "book" can only assimilate small particles of food, and its volume does not exceed 10 liters, so the animal constantly feels a slight feeling of hunger, grabbing grass over and over again.
This system helps cows to get the most of the nutrients from the grass, which is the basis of their diet.
What if you don't chew?
Those who keep a cow on a farm know that chewing gum by animals is a good sign. A sick cow or one under stress simply cannot chew food, which means that such an animal will not give milk.
Failure of the animal's stomach can also be caused by swallowing a sharp metal object, for example, nails or metal shards. Such cases are very common and often lead to scar damage and cessation of gum formation. Without treatment, which is carried out for the most part with tar, the animal dies of hunger.
