Have you ever seen that cow standing around and she looks like she’s chewing bubble gum? Well, she’s not really. When a cow is doing this, we call it “chewing her cud”. The cool thing about cud chewing is that it’s an indicator of a cow’s health. We closely monitor it because it tells us a cow is eating, feels healthy and is eating the diet she is supposed to. If a cow doesn’t feel good or isn’t in the mood for food, she won’t be chewing her cud. It’s the first and most important tool we have to diagnosing a sick cow.
One of our cows chewing her cud. Doesn't she look happy and healthy?!
Now what really is cud chewing and why do cows do it. When a cow eats her food she tends to gulp it down rather than taking her time like us. Since a cow doesn’t have top front teeth, she doesn’t do a lot of chewing right away. When she’s in her lying and standing time (check out what that is here) she begins the cud chewing. The longer pieces of hay and other fibers that are too big to continue onto the next part of digestion, are brought back up from her stomach and she continues to chew on them.
A cow will chew on these pieces until they’re the right size and then she’ll send them back down to her first stomach. Cows will spend hours of their day chewing their cud. This is just one the really unique things about her digestive system.
thankyou for your helpful comments kathy. It helps to illustrate why
Christians need to’ ruminate ‘ the reading of the Bible , which is Gods word to us, and to’ chew the cud’, in order to get the real sense of God’s word. When we neglect our bible reading .it’is one of the the first sign of spiritual sickness.
Thank you so much for your unique perspective Doreen! It was very interesting for me to listen and ruminate on what you said.
Chewing “bubble gum”…love it! Great highlight of a question many non-cattle folks have.
Thank you so much! I love teaching people about a cow chewing her cud so of course I had to do a post about it.
Ashley,
You are so right about cud chewing being an indicator of health. It also shows how “happy” she is. If a cow is scared, sick, or uncomfortable, she will not chew her cud. It’s a great indicator of humane animal handling.
Exactly, it being an indicator of human animal handling is something I wish I had thought of while writing. Thanks for adding it on your comment Kathy. One of my favorite things to teach people about is why cows chew their cud.