UDDERLY FASCINATING!

For the Daily Cud's initial "Medical Monday," it is only fitting that we consider--what else?--the cud. After all, nobody said "medical" had to be restricted to "human medical."

Just this past week a veterinarian/cowboy poet named Baxter Black had a very informative column in the Amarillo Globe-News explaining, in more detail than most of us care to know, the workings of the bovine cud. According to Baxter, the cud is part of "a magnificent ruminant digestive process" that lets cows digest foods we simple-stomached people can't manage.

Here's how it works: The cow chews up a big mouthful of grass and swallows it. It goes into "a vast fermentation vat" called the rumen, where it gets all soft and nasty. Then the cow burps it back up (along with earlier blobs), chews on it some more, sends it back down for another soak, brings it back up again, etc., etc. Finally it gets so gooey it stays down and passes through and ends up as a cow patty.

[Did I ever tell you I won a cow-patty throwing contest? It is a cross between the shot put and a frisbee throw, and is one of our favorite sports out here in the Beautiful Texas Panhandle. But that's another story.]

From the standpoint of a veterinarian, which Baxter Black is, there are several important precautions to keep in mind regarding the cow and her cud.

Precaution #1--NEVER allow your hand to come into contact with the cud. "It is nasty, green, and when you get it on your hand you have to sleep with your arm hanging off the bed for at least a week"

As part of this digestive process, cows give off enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. The cow's plumbing is such that it can cannot blow this out its rear, as we more civilized creatures do. It must belch it out its mouth. Unfortunately, sometimes a kink develops in the plumbing and the gas gets trapped in the gut and the cow bloats. Enormously. Agonizingly.

Since this is life-threatening for the cow, a prudent cattleman always keeps on hand either (or both) a "bloat hose" and/or a kind of punch called a trocar. To prevent the cow from dying on the spot, he must vent the trapped gas either by running the bloat hose down the cow's throat or by jabbing through the cow's side with the trocar. Generally over the frenzied animal's objections.

Thus, these precautions:

(1) If the bloat hose doesn't seem to be working, remember--BLOW, don't suck.

(2) If it IS working, you will know immediately. Avert your face and see how long you can go without inhaling.

(3) Put out your cigarette. Immediately. Keep the Volunteer Fire Department's number on hand, just in case.

And, finally,

(4) If you are tracking a badly bloated cow and can't find it--look up.