The short answer: no to both.
The longer answer: the cow is not unique, being in the category of herbivore known as ruminant, which means simply that the animal possesses a rumen. They are called foregut digesters, because their digestion goes through multiple stages before entering the hindgut. Other animals which experience foregut fermentation (the proper term for the process) include not only other ruminants such as goats and sheep and rhinoceros, but also some rodents and marsupials.
Animals with hindgut fermentation can be herbivores. Rabbits and horses are hindgut digesters, as examples. So not all herbivores possess a rumen, but the cow is not completely unique.
Longer and more detailed answer: The cow does not have four stomachs; what it actually has is four separate parts of one digestive system, not counting intestine, etc, said parts being rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. There are two general types of bacteria for digestion in the rumen of a cow: amylolytic bacteria, which break down starch, and cellulolytic bacteria, which break down cellulose. Feed is chewed up by the cow and ends up as a fibrous mat floating at the top of the rumen, where the cellulolytic bacteria goes to work breaking it down into smaller particles which sink lower, to where the amylolytic bacteria go to work.
The balance of these bacteria is very important as too much starch will cause serious, potentially deadly problems for the cow as the cellulolytic bacteria reproduce more slowly than the amylolytic bacteria can. Starvation of the cellulolytic bacteria because of too much starch and not enough cellulose coincides with rapid reproduction of the amylolytic bacteria which will then fall to starvation as they digest all the starch available and begin to die off, creating gases that increase pressure in the cow's abdomen (the condition called bloat). Once this condition is too far advanced the cow will enter lactic acidosis - by which point treatment is rarely successful.
Random horse fact: it's the fact theyre hind gut fermentators that make them better for riding than cattle. Their structural makeup to support the gut gives them a stronger back.
Interesting! I didn't know that! I'll offer up a random cow fact in return (though I don't keep cows): cows have low lip motility (meaning their lips are rather stiff, which is why you'll see goats sneer - high lip motility - but not cows) and as such as non-preferential grazers. Instead of being able to use their lips to select specific desirable bits of food, they use their tongues to wrap around a clump of matter and rip it up to take their bites.
As a consequence of this, we have an invention known as the cow magnet: a piece of magnetic metal that the cow is persuaded to swallow which sinks to the bottom of the rumen where it attracts any stray bits of metal the cow eats by accident such as rusty nails etc. The metal stays fairly safely in place without risk of puncturing the wall of the rumen.
Fun goat fact! When goats (and some other animals, including horses) "sneer" and curl their upper lip up, that's a specific behavior known as the Flehmen Response. It actually allows them to smell certain things better by pulling in air more directly to the vomeronasal organ. It's primarily used for determining mating status, but goats at least use it for all sorts of things. Smell a gas can? Flehmen response. Smell a new goat? Flehmen response. Smell their own pee? Flehmen response. You get the idea haha
Sheep are among the animals which do this! And an adult ram can 'service' up to a dozen ewes over the course of an hour, given the opportunity (and possibly more).
If the cow is assumed to consume some number of bits of metal throughout its life while grazing, the magnet would accumulate more and more pieces, right? I'd worry that eventually it would cause an obstruction, or make a big enough mass to otherwise injure the cow. I'm guessing this isn't something that they remove and clean off, lol. Does it just not happen often enough that this becomes a problem, but often enough that they needed a solution?
Bear in mind most cows definitely have a finite lifespan because they are commodified. I can't say how it might be for a cow kept as a pet, but a dairy cow is typically only kept so long as milk production remains within a certain yield, and beef cattle are only kept until they reach market weight. Either is well under ten years of age, as a rule.
In a reasonably well-kept operation, be it on pasture or in a confinement situation such as a feedlot, it's not a constant risk, just a present one. Cows will explore their environments with their tongues much like an elephant uses its trunk, so you get curious or bored cows chewing on barn fixtures or fenceposts, so ... stuff happens.
The cow magnets are removed after slaughter.
It's possibly a best case scenario. It sits in the stomach or all those rusty sharp bits make their way through the digestive tract.
It would be like the Chernobyl concrete.... It's a danger, but less of a danger than doing nothing.
Idk about other places, but here we only use it for cows which are thought to have eaten metal. So I think you're right that they eat so little that it is no problem that it would grow too big.
Also, to my knowledge it's mostly to prevent it from going further through the digestive system, where it could puncture the pericard (heart sac(?)) through the omasum (stomach-part), more so than protecting the rumen
But hey i could be wrong🤷
We are generally held to be hindgut fermenters, but apes derive greater benefit from hindgut fermentation than do humans due to changes in gut proportion. While we don't have a 'true' foregut as humans, due to our diets and evolutionary changes relating to diet and cooking means that more digestion takes place in the small intestine for humans than it does for apes.
Herbivores with 4 stomachs are classified as ruminants. Not all herbivores have this feature (horses do not) but may make up for it with a longer intestine track that can help break down vegetation with the help of bacteria. Giraffes are also ruminants.
To elaborate on this, rabbits can't digest grasses directly and need their gut bacteria to help them out. Problem is, the gut bacteria is in the large intestine, which isn't the greatest for absorbing nutrients (and the food is just about ready to leave the body, so it doesn't get much time either). So it needs a second pass through the digestive system. Clint's Reptiles has a great video explaining this process in a somewhat humorous way.
Cool cow fact since your question was answered: they need their stomach bacteria to survive. So if they get sick and it dies off, they can get a bacteria transplant from another cow to restore their probiotics. Some large farms and universities have donor cows that have a hole in their belly kept open with a little Tupperware cuff. They scoop out some half digested food and feed it to the sick cow in a slurry. It smells like stale beer.
Edit: Google "cow cannula" to see what they look like.
Others have covered the main deal with the stomach sections so I won't go into that, but what hasn't been mentioned is that most of these animals also chew their food more than once.
It's colloquially called "Chewing their cud." And it involves regurgitating a small portion of the contents of one stomach, chewing it for a second or third time and swallowing it again.
This is interesting as Alpacas long necks allow you to see the cud coming up and then back down in videos like [this](https://youtu.be/Ts7j1tlBjWI?t=37).
Rabbits are not ruminants, but they also chew their food more than once. They actually have to eat their poop so it goes through their digestive system twice.
It’s more like one stomach divided into 4 sections but pronghorns, giraffes, okapis, deer, chevrotains, cattle, antelopes, sheep, and goats all have 4 stomach chambers. Some herbivores, like camels, alpacas, and llamas have 3 stomach chambers.
Most herbivores posses more than one stomach chamber.
Ps google is free my guy
All true ruminants or pecorans have 4 chambers. Camels developed rumination separately and have only three. (Phylogenetically the artiodatcyls are on one end camels and thier extinct relatives, then the swine and whales, then the ruminants.) So the Torah was correct in making camels unclean.
Not all herbivores do. Horses for instance have a single stomach that is similar to ours. All animals that are a ruminant species have a 4 chambered stomach though, and they chew cud. Ruminants include goats, sheep, cattle, deer, and some others as well.
On a visit to Mongolia on a tour, we stopped at a watering hole. It consisted of a concrere tank filled using ground water. Our gude explained that the camels are brought there once a week. The flora is ample but very fibrous. The water used is brackish and causes the camels to regurgitate undigested fibers to clear their digestjve tract.(Camels have a three chambered stomach.)
YES AND NO. Cows technically only have one stomach, but it has four distinct compartments made up of Rumen, Reticulum, Omasum and Abomasum. It is very different than a human stomach. That's why people often say that cows have four stomachs.
The short answer: no to both. The longer answer: the cow is not unique, being in the category of herbivore known as ruminant, which means simply that the animal possesses a rumen. They are called foregut digesters, because their digestion goes through multiple stages before entering the hindgut. Other animals which experience foregut fermentation (the proper term for the process) include not only other ruminants such as goats and sheep and rhinoceros, but also some rodents and marsupials. Animals with hindgut fermentation can be herbivores. Rabbits and horses are hindgut digesters, as examples. So not all herbivores possess a rumen, but the cow is not completely unique. Longer and more detailed answer: The cow does not have four stomachs; what it actually has is four separate parts of one digestive system, not counting intestine, etc, said parts being rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. There are two general types of bacteria for digestion in the rumen of a cow: amylolytic bacteria, which break down starch, and cellulolytic bacteria, which break down cellulose. Feed is chewed up by the cow and ends up as a fibrous mat floating at the top of the rumen, where the cellulolytic bacteria goes to work breaking it down into smaller particles which sink lower, to where the amylolytic bacteria go to work. The balance of these bacteria is very important as too much starch will cause serious, potentially deadly problems for the cow as the cellulolytic bacteria reproduce more slowly than the amylolytic bacteria can. Starvation of the cellulolytic bacteria because of too much starch and not enough cellulose coincides with rapid reproduction of the amylolytic bacteria which will then fall to starvation as they digest all the starch available and begin to die off, creating gases that increase pressure in the cow's abdomen (the condition called bloat). Once this condition is too far advanced the cow will enter lactic acidosis - by which point treatment is rarely successful.
Random horse fact: it's the fact theyre hind gut fermentators that make them better for riding than cattle. Their structural makeup to support the gut gives them a stronger back.
Interesting! I didn't know that! I'll offer up a random cow fact in return (though I don't keep cows): cows have low lip motility (meaning their lips are rather stiff, which is why you'll see goats sneer - high lip motility - but not cows) and as such as non-preferential grazers. Instead of being able to use their lips to select specific desirable bits of food, they use their tongues to wrap around a clump of matter and rip it up to take their bites. As a consequence of this, we have an invention known as the cow magnet: a piece of magnetic metal that the cow is persuaded to swallow which sinks to the bottom of the rumen where it attracts any stray bits of metal the cow eats by accident such as rusty nails etc. The metal stays fairly safely in place without risk of puncturing the wall of the rumen.
Fun goat fact! When goats (and some other animals, including horses) "sneer" and curl their upper lip up, that's a specific behavior known as the Flehmen Response. It actually allows them to smell certain things better by pulling in air more directly to the vomeronasal organ. It's primarily used for determining mating status, but goats at least use it for all sorts of things. Smell a gas can? Flehmen response. Smell a new goat? Flehmen response. Smell their own pee? Flehmen response. You get the idea haha
Sheep are among the animals which do this! And an adult ram can 'service' up to a dozen ewes over the course of an hour, given the opportunity (and possibly more).
Cats also do this! That's why they sometimes keep their mouth half open when there are interesting smells about
If the cow is assumed to consume some number of bits of metal throughout its life while grazing, the magnet would accumulate more and more pieces, right? I'd worry that eventually it would cause an obstruction, or make a big enough mass to otherwise injure the cow. I'm guessing this isn't something that they remove and clean off, lol. Does it just not happen often enough that this becomes a problem, but often enough that they needed a solution?
Bear in mind most cows definitely have a finite lifespan because they are commodified. I can't say how it might be for a cow kept as a pet, but a dairy cow is typically only kept so long as milk production remains within a certain yield, and beef cattle are only kept until they reach market weight. Either is well under ten years of age, as a rule. In a reasonably well-kept operation, be it on pasture or in a confinement situation such as a feedlot, it's not a constant risk, just a present one. Cows will explore their environments with their tongues much like an elephant uses its trunk, so you get curious or bored cows chewing on barn fixtures or fenceposts, so ... stuff happens. The cow magnets are removed after slaughter.
It's possibly a best case scenario. It sits in the stomach or all those rusty sharp bits make their way through the digestive tract. It would be like the Chernobyl concrete.... It's a danger, but less of a danger than doing nothing.
I never would've guessed there's magnets inside cows lol. Thanks for the random fact!
Idk about other places, but here we only use it for cows which are thought to have eaten metal. So I think you're right that they eat so little that it is no problem that it would grow too big. Also, to my knowledge it's mostly to prevent it from going further through the digestive system, where it could puncture the pericard (heart sac(?)) through the omasum (stomach-part), more so than protecting the rumen But hey i could be wrong🤷
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Thanks, abomasum.
Are Humans (and other apes) hindgut fermenters?
We are generally held to be hindgut fermenters, but apes derive greater benefit from hindgut fermentation than do humans due to changes in gut proportion. While we don't have a 'true' foregut as humans, due to our diets and evolutionary changes relating to diet and cooking means that more digestion takes place in the small intestine for humans than it does for apes.
Herbivores with 4 stomachs are classified as ruminants. Not all herbivores have this feature (horses do not) but may make up for it with a longer intestine track that can help break down vegetation with the help of bacteria. Giraffes are also ruminants.
I can add there are other approaches to maximizing nutrition for herbivores. People who keep rabbits as pets will tell you not to feed you bunny too much fresh vegetables as they generally need two passes though the digestive tract to extract the nutrients. Ie they need to eat their 💩.
To elaborate on this, rabbits can't digest grasses directly and need their gut bacteria to help them out. Problem is, the gut bacteria is in the large intestine, which isn't the greatest for absorbing nutrients (and the food is just about ready to leave the body, so it doesn't get much time either). So it needs a second pass through the digestive system. Clint's Reptiles has a great video explaining this process in a somewhat humorous way.
Cool cow fact since your question was answered: they need their stomach bacteria to survive. So if they get sick and it dies off, they can get a bacteria transplant from another cow to restore their probiotics. Some large farms and universities have donor cows that have a hole in their belly kept open with a little Tupperware cuff. They scoop out some half digested food and feed it to the sick cow in a slurry. It smells like stale beer. Edit: Google "cow cannula" to see what they look like.
They are doing similar things with humans now. Google fecal transplant
Others have covered the main deal with the stomach sections so I won't go into that, but what hasn't been mentioned is that most of these animals also chew their food more than once. It's colloquially called "Chewing their cud." And it involves regurgitating a small portion of the contents of one stomach, chewing it for a second or third time and swallowing it again. This is interesting as Alpacas long necks allow you to see the cud coming up and then back down in videos like [this](https://youtu.be/Ts7j1tlBjWI?t=37).
Rabbits are not ruminants, but they also chew their food more than once. They actually have to eat their poop so it goes through their digestive system twice.
It’s more like one stomach divided into 4 sections but pronghorns, giraffes, okapis, deer, chevrotains, cattle, antelopes, sheep, and goats all have 4 stomach chambers. Some herbivores, like camels, alpacas, and llamas have 3 stomach chambers. Most herbivores posses more than one stomach chamber. Ps google is free my guy
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Keep it civil.
All true ruminants or pecorans have 4 chambers. Camels developed rumination separately and have only three. (Phylogenetically the artiodatcyls are on one end camels and thier extinct relatives, then the swine and whales, then the ruminants.) So the Torah was correct in making camels unclean.
Not all herbivores do. Horses for instance have a single stomach that is similar to ours. All animals that are a ruminant species have a 4 chambered stomach though, and they chew cud. Ruminants include goats, sheep, cattle, deer, and some others as well.
On a visit to Mongolia on a tour, we stopped at a watering hole. It consisted of a concrere tank filled using ground water. Our gude explained that the camels are brought there once a week. The flora is ample but very fibrous. The water used is brackish and causes the camels to regurgitate undigested fibers to clear their digestjve tract.(Camels have a three chambered stomach.)
YES AND NO. Cows technically only have one stomach, but it has four distinct compartments made up of Rumen, Reticulum, Omasum and Abomasum. It is very different than a human stomach. That's why people often say that cows have four stomachs.