NOBLE COW: MUNCHING GRASS LOOKING CURIOUS AND JUST HANGING AROUND
10.
Cows Turn Pastureland Into Useful Food
By Bill Croushore
One of the perks of my career is the opportunity to work outside in the springtime. The grass is getting green and the weather is getting warmer and all seems right with the world. As we get later into spring, many of the dairy cattle will get the opportunity to go outside the barn and eat some grass.
While the grass isn’t tall enough yet to allow for substantial grazing, it is getting there. Ruminants, like the cow, are specially adapted to eat grass and turn it into energy and protein. This is made possible by the rumen, the large fermentation chamber of the cow’s complex stomach.
When a cow eats grass, the bacteria, yeast and protozoa organisms in her rumen are able to convert the otherwise indigestible parts of the grass into energy and protein the cow can use. The dairy cow uses the energy and protein to manufacture milk in the udder.
Cows Turn Pastureland Into Useful Food
By Bill Croushore
One of the perks of my career is the opportunity to work outside in the springtime. The grass is getting green and the weather is getting warmer and all seems right with the world. As we get later into spring, many of the dairy cattle will get the opportunity to go outside the barn and eat some grass.
While the grass isn’t tall enough yet to allow for substantial grazing, it is getting there. Ruminants, like the cow, are specially adapted to eat grass and turn it into energy and protein. This is made possible by the rumen, the large fermentation chamber of the cow’s complex stomach.
When a cow eats grass, the bacteria, yeast and protozoa organisms in her rumen are able to convert the otherwise indigestible parts of the grass into energy and protein the cow can use. The dairy cow uses the energy and protein to manufacture milk in the udder.
Because in India still the system is a householder keeps at least, in the village, at least ten to twelve cows. But he hasn’t got to pay anything for keeping these. The cows go to the pasturing ground and in the evening comes back. And some grass, dry grass which is by-product of the grains, that is offered to her, and instead of, in place she offers milk. So milk in the village, still it is available very easily, without any expenses.
—Srila Prabhupada (Lecture, Bhagavad-gita 3.17-20, New York, May 27, 1966)
When a cow takes a bite of grass, she doesn’t waste much time in chewing it; that might interfere with her next bite of grass. Instead, she swallows it then takes another bite and she will worry about chewing later.
After a lengthy time spent grazing, the cow will eventually lie down and chew her cud. Her complex stomach will sort the feed she has already ingested into that which needs chewed and that which has already been.
I know it sounds disgusting. Chewing food that has already been eaten; I must be kidding, right? It would most certainly be disgusting if the cow wasn’t a ruminant, but she is and she most certainly enjoys it. I have never seen an animal more content than a cow chewing her cud.
To the cow, chewing her cud is heaven on earth. When she chews her cud, she grinds the fibrous feed material into a pulp so that the microorganisms in her rumen can do the work of digesting it. Without the process, the grass couldn’t be digested.
When the cow swallows her cud, it goes back to the rumen to be mixed and sloshed around to ensure complete digestion. Then, the remainder passes out of the rumen to finish the digestion process.
You may notice as you see the cows grazing this spring that they are allelomimetic. That means each animal does the same thing as those nearby. Social animals display this behaviour. When cows graze, they are either all standing and grazing, or all lying down and chewing their cud, with the exception of some cows that have anti-establishment tendencies.
We really should be thankful for cows for their ability to take otherwise useless grass and turn it into food for people. It has been said that cows are the foster mothers of the human race and I have to believe that is true.
-- (Dr. Croushore is a veterinarian with White Oak Veterinary Clinic in Berlin, Germany.)
After a lengthy time spent grazing, the cow will eventually lie down and chew her cud. Her complex stomach will sort the feed she has already ingested into that which needs chewed and that which has already been.
I know it sounds disgusting. Chewing food that has already been eaten; I must be kidding, right? It would most certainly be disgusting if the cow wasn’t a ruminant, but she is and she most certainly enjoys it. I have never seen an animal more content than a cow chewing her cud.
To the cow, chewing her cud is heaven on earth. When she chews her cud, she grinds the fibrous feed material into a pulp so that the microorganisms in her rumen can do the work of digesting it. Without the process, the grass couldn’t be digested.
When the cow swallows her cud, it goes back to the rumen to be mixed and sloshed around to ensure complete digestion. Then, the remainder passes out of the rumen to finish the digestion process.
You may notice as you see the cows grazing this spring that they are allelomimetic. That means each animal does the same thing as those nearby. Social animals display this behaviour. When cows graze, they are either all standing and grazing, or all lying down and chewing their cud, with the exception of some cows that have anti-establishment tendencies.
We really should be thankful for cows for their ability to take otherwise useless grass and turn it into food for people. It has been said that cows are the foster mothers of the human race and I have to believe that is true.
-- (Dr. Croushore is a veterinarian with White Oak Veterinary Clinic in Berlin, Germany.)
