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Tongue Power

Didn’t your mother teach you it was impolite to stick out your tongue? Well, it’s perfectly normal for a cow.

Grazing animals each have a different way of eating grass. A cow’s method is to use its tongue. A cow’s tongue is long, as you can tell from this photo, and dexterous. Cows are able to use their tongue to wrap around grass or plants growing in a pasture and pull the food into their mouth so they can eat it. Well, if you don’t have hands you need to find some other way to get the food to your mouth!

Also, cows only have bottom teeth. Once they’ve used their tongue to get the grass or other feed material into their moth, it’s “chewed” between the lower jaw and a the pad on the upper jaw. She swallows it down and there begins the rumination process or chewing the cud. But I won’t get into those details, at least not while you’re eating.

Learn a little more about Tillamook cows here!

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