Why do cows have three stomachs?

Answer 1

A cow's diet of coarse plant material like grass is much harder to digest than that of an omnivore's or carnivore's diet. Thus it requires several steps in order for a cow (being a ruminant) to fully digest and absorb the nutrients from the plant matter that she eats. A simple stomach that secretes hydrochloric acid and peptidases just doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to having to digest a 100% forage/roughage diet. An animal, like humans, with only a simple stomach with no cecum would starve to death on coarse roughage like dried grasses and hay. Thus, a ruminant is more adapt and efficient at breaking down and utilizing the nutrients from such fodder sources as grass, clover, alfalfa, or even leaves from trees. The multiple chambers and the ability to regurgitate and rechew partly digested matter make it all the easier for that animal to efficiently digest and use the nutrients from the grass a bovine eats.

Answer 2

Cows have seven stomachs only because you've been believing someone or something that is completely false. Cows do not have seven stomachs, they only have one. That one stomach is divided into four chambers or compartments, being the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum, all which play a different role in the digestive processes of a cow for more efficient means of digesting forage and roughage that we humans would simply starve to death on.

Answer 3

Cows live on plants, especially grass. The largest component of their diet is cellulose. This is very difficult to digest; in fact most animals can't digest it. Cows do it by "fermenting" it in a secondary stomach; this contains bacteria which can digest cellulose. The cow can digest the bacteria.

Answer 4

Cows don't have a lot of stomachs. They only have one stomach with four compartments. A cow's diet primarily comprises of coarse plant material, which takes more effort and more areas in the cow's stomach to digest fully and properly. Digesta has to be fermented, then regurgitated and rechewed, before it's sent back to the rumen again to be fermented again, then the water drained from it, and then digested again to get the nutrients (like proteins) that the rumen missed digesting or couldn't digest.

Answer 5

This is a common misconception: a cow does not have four stomachs, but four chambers within one stomach. It has these four chambers because when you dissect or do a necropsy on a dead cow (or even a sheep) you can count the number of stomach chambers it has.

Answer 6

Actually cows also have only one stomach, but it is divided into four compartments that can look like four separate organs. The difference is due to the different methods of digestion. Cattle are foregut fermenters, and the rumen is the primary location of cellulose breakdown; because of this, cattle intestines are relatively short, particularly the large intestine. In contrast, horses are hindgut fermenters and the cecum is the primary location of cellulose breakdown; because of this, the large intestine is relatively long and well-developed.

Answer 7

They don't. Cattle (cows included) only have one stomach with four compartments. See the related question below for why they have to have so many chambers in their digestive systems.

Answer 8

So they can digest their food properly without any indigestion