Cattle and their unique digestive system

Posted in Animals, Nature on Monday, 28 February 2011

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This edited article about cattle and their digestive system originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 909 published on 23 June 1979.

Cattle belong to a family of animals known as Bovidae, which include goats, sheep, antelopes and all the other ruminant animals. The zoological name of the cattle we are so used to seeing on our farms is Bos taurus, and we are very dependent upon them for an important part of our diet – milk, cream, butter, cheese and, of course, meat.

Cattle grazing. Ilustratiob by Sue Neale

Cattle grazing. Ilustratiob by Sue Neale

Cattle are known as ruminating animals because of their unique digestive system, which enables them to eat coarse feeding stuff such as grass or hay. They have four separate compartments in their stomachs.

The function of the first compartment – the rumen – is to soften the grass or straw which then overflows into the smaller second stomach. The food may be returned or regurgitated from either of these stomachs. The animal then chews it again in small portions called “cuds” – and appears to be meditating or “ruminating” while doing so.

Cattle are believed to have appeared first in India and Europe during the Pliocene era, about seven million years ago, but zoologists are uncertain whether the early Indian species were the ancestors of the cattle found in Europe today.

Originally, these animals were not domesticated, but simply beasts to be hunted for their flesh and hides, and it is thought that they were not tamed until agriculture had its beginnings in valleys of the Euphrates and the Egyptian Nile.

This probably occurred around 12,000 BC, but it was not until about 3000 BC that cattle were domesticated in Britain. The early British cattle were probably black in colour, small and slender, and came to these islands with the Celtic invaders.

Changes occurred shortly after the Romans invaded Britain, when they introduced larger, white cattle which were probably the ancestors of the white animals found in Italy today.

The Saxons, Angles and Danes all brought their own cattle to Britain when they invaded the country, and later the Normans may have been responsible for introducing the ancestors of the modern Hereford breed.

The twenty or so British breeds of cattle seen today have been evolved from this mixture, but until the middle of the 17th century all the animals were used only for drawing carts or pulling ploughs, as they still are in many parts of the world. When they were too old for work, they were killed and used for food, so some of the “roast beef of olde England” was probably rather tough!

The scientifically controlled breeding of cattle to improve the quality of the meat, and later the quality and quantity of milk yield, began in the 18th century, and continues to this day.

British livestock have been exported to many parts of the world, and three great breeds, the modern Beef Shorthorn, the red-and-white Hereford, and the black Aberdeen Angus have been chiefly responsible for Great Britain gaining the title of “stockfarm of the world”.

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