Monday, April 18, 2011

Life is good for Bonnie-the-Jersey-Cow

She eats until she's full, grazing for all she's worth.  Cows can put down a lot of grass in a short time because they don't chew their food; they swallow it whole and it goes to the rumen, which can hold up to fifty gallons.  


Once the food she's eaten is nice and soft, it goes to the recticulum, where it's softened and digested even further and is formed into small wads of cud.  Each cud returns to the cow's mouth and is chewed forty to fifty times, then swallowed.  The food has two more stomachs to go through, each one softening and digesting the food a little more.  
This time of year, with all the green grass Bonnie is eating, we won't talk about what comes out the other end; sufficient to say it's pretty liquified and nasty.  


Bonnie loves this time of year, and I think she's secretly glad her stupid son won't enter into the pen with the new grass.  


Sometimes it's nice for a mom to get a break from the kid.  


Clyde doesn't like the situation much, but we all have to grow up sometime.  


  

5 comments:

  1. She sure does look like a contented cow. I love those big brown eyes of hers. All that green grass is a beautiful sight for me too. It's so nice not to be seeing nothing but snow everywhere you look.

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  2. I envy Bonnie. I'd love to be out in the sunshine, in a field, with lucious grass like that, to celebrate spring. Clyde doesn't know what he's missing.

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  3. She's pretty, but I think she looks grumpy. In that one photo she looks like she's yelling. :) Of course, I know nothing about cows. My husband grew up around them, but not me.

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  4. Now you have told me more than I ever knew about cows. Clyde doesn't look very happy but Bonnie really does look contented. Helen

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  5. That's hilarious! WTG Bonnie taking time for yourself!

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