Herbivores with multiple stomach chambers — such as camels, deer, sheep, giraffes and cattle — are called ruminants.
The animals in which semi-digestive food returns back into mouth and animal chews it are called ruminants.
Ruminant animals are animals that chew and regurgitate their food more than once, and digest it multiple times in different stomachs. These animals are quadruped mammals with even toes, hooves and chew the cud. They generally have four stomachs with different characteristics, which are used at different stages in digestion.
“Plant cells are tough, and the cellulose that makes up their cell walls is difficult to digest,”. Digestion starts with the teeth. Herbivores have large, flat teeth that grind up plant materials. In contrast, carnivores have mostly sharp, pointed teeth that are used for tearing flesh. Once the plant materials are chewed, special bacteria in the gut of an herbivore and the longer digestive tract break down the plant material.
Ruminants regurgitate food and rechew it to help with the digestive process. This regurgitated food is called cud. After swallowing the cud, it travels to the second stomach chamber. After it softens, the cud goes back up to be chewed again and then goes down to the third chamber. This keeps happening until the cud has made its way through all of the stomach chambers.
The herbivores do the hard job of processing the energy that comes from plant life, which makes them much easier to digest for the carnivores.