ACT OF RUMINATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 May 1940, Page 9

ACT OF RUMINATION

WHAT OBSERVATION TEACHES

The act of rumination should be read as you read a thermometer,, observing the regularity or otherwise of every phase of it and counting the number of strokes given to each of a succession of boluses, states an Irish exchange. Regularity in the movements and a maximum number of cuts per bolus are always associated in a state of perfect health, while departure from health is increasingly indicated as the number of cuts observed decreases, and the movements become hesitating and erratic.

Calves begin to ruminate soon after they have access to long food, and have been known to do so before they are a fortnight old. Healthy cows spend 25 per cent of their time ruminating, and the number of ruminating periods per day depends to some extent on the number of meals and the amount of disturbance to which they are subjected. The normal average number of periods per days, continues the exchange, is eight. Of these five occur during the daytime, and three between the evening and morning meals.

The masticatory movements of the ruminating cow are slow and deliberate compared with those of the sheep or goat. The speed of the movements, nevertheless, varies • in different cows according to temperament, and since one may be seen to dispose of five mouthfuls, while another accomplishes four, each subjecting the cut to the normal number of cuts, it follows that the time spent on rumination by animals of equal appetite must vary a little.