Digestive system of Ruminants

Introduction:

    We know about how we eat. But, have you ever thought about how ruminants, like cows eat. Do you think cows will have H.C.L in their stomach. Do you think cows will have a very very very long process or maybe very short process. We will study all about this now.

Ruminants:

    Ruminants are grass eating animals which follow rumination.

Rumination:

    Rumination is an slow process. In rumination the ruminants like cows will eat grass partially and store it in the rumen. It will take the food from rumen, and will bring it to the mouth and chew again for some time. We will later on study about what is a rumen.

Digestion:

Digestion first starts from the mouth. They will partially chew the grass. The partially chewed food is called as cud. The cud will be stored in the rumen. The cud will go to the recticulum. From the recticulum, the big food particles goes to the mouth. Again the cow will chew the cud for sometime. But, the small food particles go to the omasum directly. From the omasum it goes to the abomasum. From the abomasum, cud goes to the small intestine. Between the small intestine and large intestine there is "Cecum." So the cud will go to the cecum. Finally from the cecum cud goes to large intestine.

So if you count, totally there are 4 stomachs for ruminants.

The journey is over!!!!!

• Rumen- 1st stomach- Cud is stored in rumen- breaks food particles with help of symbiotic microbes
• Recticulum- 2nd stomach- Place were the particles are specifically separated to go to an specific region by according to their size- Large food particles go to the mouth for more chewing- Small food particles go the omasum directly
• Omasum- 3rd stomach- Helps in absorbing water
• Abomasum- 4th stomach- Helps in digestion of proteins- The abomasum produces gastric juices like Hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes which helps in digestion 
• Small intestine- helps in absoption and digestion- recieves gastric juices from the Liver and the Pancreas which helps in digestion
• Large intestine- Undigested food pass through it- Microbes help in digesting the food- Helps in absorbing water from the undigested food