Welcome to You Ask Andy

Linda Van Dyke, age 9, of Wichita, Kansas, for her question:

Are cows the only cud chewers?

No, indeed, there is a whole host of cud chewers in the animal kingdom. They are called Ruminants from nn older word meaning to chew. Among them are the door, the antelopes, the camels, llamas cnd the tall giraffes. Sheep and goats are also ruminants as are bison, oxen and. all cattle. these animals, like Bossy the cow, gobble up their food and. chew the c~x later.

Bossy spends a lot of time grazing. She wraps her big rough tongue around each bunch of grass and swallows it wholes The food is swallowed. without being chewed. That comes later. Bossy's large stomach is divided into four separate compartments. The food passes first into the largest compartment. There it stays until Bossy has some time on her hands.

She then strolls off to some shady tree in the pasture and, settles down to finish her meal in peace. If you are watching you will see her give a slight hiccup. This is the cud coming up into her mouth from her stomach storage compartment. The cud is a round wad of grass, slightly moist. Bossy chews it slowly and carefully. Then she swallows it. Then this well‑chewed food passes into other stomach compartments to be digest©d.

Bossy gives another hiccup and up comes another cud. This chewing of the cud takes a long tuna, maybe several hours. For Bossy's grassy salad must be well chewed before she can digest it.

A11 ruminants are vegetarians. They also are hoofed animals. They never eat meat but they are very popular with animals that do eat meat. The ruminants have been victims of the moat caters from earliest times.

We are not surprised that ruminants have hoofs because they had to be good runners to survive. In the wild state their cud chewing also helped in their survival. An animal is very noticeable to ids enemies while grazing in an open pasture. So the cud chewers spend as little time as possible out in the open.

Deer, for example, come out to graze only in the early morning and evening. They swallow a meal without stopping to chew it. Then they go back to hide in the shadows, where they can take their time to chew the cud in safety.

The ancestors of our domestic Bossy also lived in the wild. Wild cattle and oxen were hunted by hungry meat eaters. So they had to keep out of sight as much as possible. One of their best tricks was to grab a meal and go away to chew it in safety.

  Bossy no longer has to hide  while she chews her cud. But she still has the same ruminant stomach her ancestors had. Nor do sheep, goats and. camels need to hide. But the deer and their other wild relatives must still find a shadowy spot in which to safely chow the cud

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