Unit 9
[Listen and Write]
A cow eats a large amount of food every day. When a cow eats grass, it gives the grass a quick chew with its back teeth and swallows it. The partly chewed grass goes into the rumen, the grass is broken down into ‘balls of cud’.
When the rumen is full, the cow stops eating and rests. While it rests, the cow brings back each ball of cud into its mouth and chews it again, transforming it into a soft pulp. Then, it swallows the pulp again. The pulp goes to the second and third stomachs.
The tough bits in the pulp go back to the rumen and the process starts all over again. The rest of the pulp goes on to the last stomach where it is completely digested.
The cow puts its food through many rounds of digestion and takes in all the nutrients at the end. |