The cow is an interesting creature that is often known for having more stomachs than the human being. Actually, it is believed that a cow has four stomachs, but actually, the cow has four chambers of the stomach.
The digestion process takes a lot longer than a human’s digestion process. As a matter of fact, it takes a cow’s digestion to take a few days whereas a human’s digestion takes a few hours. The cow has four chambers to it including the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. The largest chamber is the rumen. Each chamber serves a specific function with the rumen chamber which begins the digestion and holds all of the water and grass that the cow ingested. The reticulum acts as the filter and removes anything that should not be processed in the digestion.
A cows stomach has four chambers. This means that it belongs to a group of mammals called ruminants. Other such mammals include goats, sheep, giraffes, yaks, deer, and antelope. These four chambers are called the rumen, the omasum, the reticulum, and the abomasum.
Each of the chambers works together to digest the food the ruminant ingests. Ruminants go through a process where they ferment their food and then regurgitate it to chew it again and further break down the plant matter. The four chambers each play a role in this process.