cud

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(kŭd) pronunciation
n.
  1. Food regurgitated from the first stomach to the mouth of a ruminant and chewed again.
  2. Something held in the mouth and chewed, such as a quid of tobacco.

[Middle English, from Old English cudu.]


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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: n. - A wad of something chewable as tobacco; Food of a ruminant regurgitated to be chewed again.

Tutor's tip: When I was little, I "could" (past tense of can) watch the cows chew their "cud" (food that cows return to their mouths from their stomachs to be rechewed) all day.

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The bolus regurgitated by ruminants. It contains fiber, other food particles, rumen liquor and flora.

  • c. chewing — after regurgitation, chewing on the remains of the regurgitus.
  • c. dropping — a usually temporary condition in the cow in which each regurgitated bolus is rejected to the exterior. There is no other abnormality.
  • losing the c. — the cow that has ‘lost her cud’ is not ruminating. This is a nonspecific sign of illness.
  • c. transfer — a therapeutic practice of collecting fresh ruminal contents, from the mouth of a ruminating cow or by stomach tube from a rumen or from a freshly killed normal animal, and administering an infusion of it to a cow with ruminal stasis. The objective is to repopulate the recipient rumen with viable, normal ruminal flora.
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This article is about the digestive process of a ruminant. For other uses, see Cud (disambiguation).

Cud is a portion of food that returns from a ruminant's stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time. More accurately, it is a bolus of semi-degraded food regurgitated from the reticulorumen of a ruminant. Cud is produced during the physical digestive process of rumination. The idiomatic expression chewing one's cud means meditating or pondering; similar expressions such as "he chewed that over for a bit", or "chew on that!" likely have the same derivation.

Contents

Explanation

The alimentary canal of ruminants, such as cattle, goats, sheep, alpacas and antelope, is unable to produce the enzymes required to break down the cellulose and hemicellulose of plant matter. Accordingly, these animals have developed a symbiotic relationship with a wide range of microbes, which largely reside in the reticulorumen, and which are able to synthesize the requisite enzymes. The reticulorumen thus hosts a microbial fermentation which yields products (mainly volatile fatty acids and microbial protein), which the ruminant is able to digest and absorb. This allows digestion of less edible plants.

Process of rumination

The process of rumination is stimulated by the presence of roughage in the upper part of the reticulorumen. The chest cavity is stretched, forming a vacuum in the gullet that sucks the semi-liquid stomach content into the esophagus. From the esophagus it is taken back to the mouth with retro peristaltic movements. When the stomach content, or the cud, arrives in the mouth of the ruminant, it is pushed against the palate with the tongue to remove excess liquid, the latter is swallowed and the solid material is chewed thoroughly. The function of rumination is that food is physically refined to expose more surface area for bacteria working in the reticulorumen, as well as stimulation of saliva secretion to buffer the rumen pH.

Chemistry

The reticulorumen has an optimum pH of 6.5 for the microbe population to live and function. Consumption by ruminants of an insufficiently fibrous diet leads to little cud formation and therefore lowered amounts of saliva production. This in turn is associated with rumen acidosis, where the rumen pH can fall to as low as pH 5 or lower. Rumen acidosis is associated with a lowered appetite which leads to still lower rates of saliva secretion. Eventually, a collapse of the microbial ecosystem in the rumen will occur because of the low pH. Acute rumen acidosis can lead to death of the animal, and will occur if the animal is allowed to eat a diet with no roughage but high levels of highly digestible starchy concentrate. Some dairy cows in intensive systems of milk production may have sub-acute acidosis because of the high rates of cereals in their diets relative to an insufficient amount of forage. However most producers provide adequate fodder in the form of hay to prevent this.[citation needed]

Final digestion

When food has been degraded efficiently it passes from the reticulorumen through the reticulo-omasal orifice to the omasum followed by the abomasum to continue the digestion process in the lower parts of the alimentary canal. No enzymes are secreted in the rumen. Enzymes and hydrochloric acid are only secreted from the Abomasum (fourth stomach) onwards, and ruminants function from that point onwards much like monogastric animals, such as pigs and humans.


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Dansk (Danish)
n. - foderbolle

Nederlands (Dutch)
voedsel uit de maag dat herkauwd wordt, iets om op te kauwen

Français (French)
n. - ruminement

Deutsch (German)
n. - wiedergekäutes Futter

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αναμασημένη τροφή των μηρυκαστικών

Italiano (Italian)
(rumin.) bolo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - alimento (m) que os ruminantes fazem voltar do estômago à boca

Русский (Russian)
жвачка

Español (Spanish)
n. - rumia, alimento que mastican por segunda vez los rumiantes, cosa rumiada o meditada

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - boll av idisslad föda

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
反刍的食物

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 反芻的食物

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 새김질 감

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 反芻食塊

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ما يجتره الحيوان‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮גירה‬


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