Ruminants Digestive System

Introduction

Hello everyone! Today's topic is studying about the digestive system of Ruminants. Examples of ruminants are cows, sheep, and etc. Do you know how the ruminants eat their food? Do you think ruminants have HCL to break down the food particles? Actually, ruminants do  have HCL in there stomach. 

Ruminants:

 Do you know what are Ruminants?     Ruminants are animals which have 4 chambers in the stomach. They are grass eating animals. Examples of Ruminants are cows, sheep, and etc. So, the ruminants will eat more amount of food and store it in the rumen. When the animal is hungry or need of more energy the food stored in the ruman will come back to the mouth and chew it again.

Digestive System of Ruminants

The process will start at the mouth. The animal will partially masticate the food. The partially masticated food will go through a pipe called as Esophagus to the Rumen is the stomach. The partially digested food will be stored in the Rumen. The food that is stored in the rumen is called as cud. The smaller food particles will automatically go to the omasum and the larger in size particles will go to the Reticulate (A part of the stomach).From the reticulam, the cud will go back to the mouth to masticate the food again for some time. After that the cud will go to the Omasum. In the Omasum, the Omasum will absorb water from the cud. From the Omasum, the food will go to the abomasum. The abomasum is lined with glands. These glands release hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes, needed to breakdown the food. Then, the food will go to the small intestine.The small intestine completes most of the digestive process and absorbs many nutrients through villi ( Small finger like projection). After that, the food will go through the ceacum to the large intestine. The large intestine is the last section of the digestive tract for ruminants. It is were the undigested food particles pass through. Microbes digest some undigested food here. But, it;s main function is to absorb the water.

So, what are the 4 chambers are the stomach in Ruminants?

• Rumen
• Omasum
• Abomasum
• Reticulam

What is the function of the chambers of the stomach ?

• Ruman- first chamber in the stomach, stores the partially digested food
• Reticulam- Second chamber in the stomach, helps in passes the larger food particles back to their mouth for chewing it agian.
• Omasum- Third chamber in the stomach, Absorb water from the cud
• Abomasum- Forth chamber of the stomach, lined with gland, glands release hydrochloric acid.

Thank you!