Most people know that cows chew a cud, but do you know why? Cows are ruminants, which means they have one HUGE stomach with 4 various sizes compartments. The rumen is the biggest stomach, by far, and is the reason they can eat things like hay, grass, and silage and we can’t! It can breakdown the nutrients in those plants that we can’t. When they eat, they don’t always chew each bite well enough to digest it. Inside their rumen, floating on top of all the liquid is a ‘mat’ of long stemmed food pa