Keeping a Family Cow by Joann S. Grohman

Author:Joann S. Grohman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60358-479-1
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2013-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

The typical ruminant is an animal that survives by fleeing from danger. It is a prey species. It goes out in an open, grassy area to graze and eats as rapidly as possible, swallowing its food without chewing. Then it goes off to a safe place and brings up the undigested grass one mouthful, or cud, at a time and chews it thoroughly before swallowing it again. The cud is composed of fibrous stringy material that floats in the rumen like a mattress. Chewing adds saliva and breaks cell walls, releasing carbohydrates, which provide a quick meal for the microorganisms, which then attack the cellulose when the cud is swallowed.

The microorganisms are able to chemically break down the fiber and use its constituents as building blocks for amino acids. These bacteria within the rumen create “from scratch” all the essential amino acids; in other words, they create complete animal protein. They assemble their own cell walls and cell contents from these amino acids.

This complete protein, in the form of a soup of living and dead bacteria and protozoa, passes along into the ruminant’s additional stomach compartments for further processing and finally into the abomasum or true gut, where it receives digestion and absorption similar to our own. When food reaches the abomasum, the cow ceases to be a vegetarian; her rumen provides her with a high-protein diet. This is not incomplete soybean or peanut or wheat protein; it is complete protein obtainable to the rest of us only by eating eggs, meat, fish, or other living creatures or by drinking milk.

Every animal requires complete (animal) protein from some source in order to maintain a breeding population. It bears repeating: all animals except ruminants and others with a specialized organ full of cellulose- splitting bacteria must obtain their complete protein by eating other animals or drinking milk. Thus, the bacteria inside an insect digests the cellulose, perhaps a fish eats the insect, then a duck eats the fish, somebody eats the duck, and so on up to the ultimate consumer. But the complete protein was derived initially from synthesis by bacteria. The creatures higher up the food chain accumulate complete protein; they all have to eat other animals to get theirs. Then they pass it along when they in turn are eaten.

The cow proceeds efficiently from resident bacteria directly to her complete (animal) protein diet without the intermediaries necessary elsewhere in the food chain. Because of the extremely simple dietary requirements of rumen bacteria (any fibrous material), the extremely high nutritional value of milk, and the negligible net energy loss that the process requires (it can approach zero), the dairy cow is uniquely efficient among animals, and impressive by comparison with any system. She produces an easily obtainable food of the highest possible nutritional quality right on site from coarse plants of no use to anybody else. The only thing lower on the food chain than a cow is bacteria.

Note that rumen bacteria do not digest one type of fiber: lignin. The large amount of lignin in wood makes sawdust of little value in ruminant feeding.

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