Eli5: How is it that Cows can consume the same fibrous grass that makes every other herbivores scat into tight balls, somehow manage to produce turds of such low density as to be called “cow patties”? ?

Question

Eli5: How is it that Cows can consume the same fibrous grass that makes every other herbivores scat into tight balls, somehow manage to produce turds of such low density as to be called “cow patties”? ?

In: Biology

Answer 1

For other grazers, they don’t effectively digest the fibrous material in grass and other plants -so what comes out is a bunch of cellulose fiber left over from extracting everything else in the leaves.

Cows have a 4-chambered stomach, and they have a digestive process where they will regurgitate partially digested grass and chew it again (“chew their cud”) to grind down the fibers more and more. Then it goes back into the next stomach. In those stomachs are bacteria that break down cellulose into digestion-friendly nutrients.

So that’s the short answer – cows have bacteria that break down the fibers to mush, so there’s no compilation of left-over fiber to form a nice firm road apples like horses or sheep.