this time, it's really the genetics
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Unexpectedly interesting and educational cartoon discussion thread.
4 vs 1 stomach.
I recall a shaggy dog version of this that ends...
The cow, unlike the horse, is a ruminant, and is therefore able to digest fibrous material more efficiently.
If you enjoyed this comment, please invite me to a party. I swear I will be fun this time.
Joke's on you, the only people at parties that I want to talk to are fellow nerds who spout random facts.
Thank you for subscribing to Ruminant Facts.
If you agree to wear that notorious horse mask, and take at least one shot through it, you're invited.
Also you just have to always say 'neigh' instead of 'no', if you fuck that up, another shot.
(we can do half shots if you're not a heavy drinker, you can lead a horse to water but forcing it to black out is unethical)
damn i wish somebody talked to me that way
Based on this random fact I honestly would invite you to my party (if I'd host any parties at all). Why would anyone think that you're not fun at parties?
Unfortunately, the people who would invite someone to a party based on their knowledge of obscure facts and the people who throw parties are not usually the same people.
That is very truly unfortunate.
I'm just joking around with some self-deprecating humor to diffuse the pedantic nature of my comment, but I appreciate your sincere response. The people in your life are lucky to have you.
Therefore making him fatter? Isn't fiber supposed to be healthy?
Fiber is healthy for us because we can't digest it, so it bulks up our food without adding calories, and provides nutrients to our gut bacteria
Cows have an organ called a rumen that breaks down cellulose into carbohydrates, so they get way more calories from grass than we would. Surprisingly enough, though, horses also can't digest fiber. Which is why I've always found it odd that they eat grass
Both cows, horses and even to a limited extent humans can digest fiber. Cows digest fiber in the rumen where it actually turns mostly into organic acids which the cow can oxidize while the anaerobic rumen bacteria cannot. Interestingly the same thing happens in the large intestine in other mammals. For humans the large intestine is quite small and food moves through there too quickly for much fiber to be properly digested. However the easiest digestible fiber, soluble fiber, actually mostly breaks down even in a human's large intestine and yields us approximately 2 calories per gram of soluble fiber. For insoluble fiber this amount is extremely low since there is not enough fermentation taking place for it to be completely broken down. However for mammals with a much larger large intestine where food passes much slower, even the harder to digest fibers can be utilized to a large degree.
Horses belong to this category and are called hindgut fermenters. Other examples may surprise you like gorillas and orangutans who have incredibly huge large intestines. That's why those apes can eat leaves all day and is an explanation why their stomachs are huge without them being filled with fat, it's all intestines.
However a weakness with hindgut fermentation is that the large intestine can only extract solubles from the microbial mass which leaves out a lot of nutrients. A cow can extract those same organic acids from the fermentation but since the rumen is first in their digestive system the whole microbial mass enters their "ordinary" digestive system which means that they can digest the actual bacteria as well, meaning they manage to extract a bunch of extra microbial proteins that hindgut fermenters may miss. The benefit to hindgut fermentation is however that the first shot at digesting the food is given to the animal itself. A horse can digest starch just as well as a human could but a cow suffers considerable losses in starch digestion since the bacteria gets first gibs, turning the starch to organic acids instead of getting broken down into simple sugars directly, which is more efficient. So in short a cow and horse can both digest fiber. However their digestive systems have significant tradeoffs and one is not necessarily better than the other.
wow what a nice explanation. thank you.
βHave you tried galloping?β
That horse runs Arch, btw.
Considering that's a Holstein breed cow and therefore a milking cow, the nutritional demands are entirely different. Getting a cow to produce 40 liters of milk a day is no easy task and requires grass of the highest quality, combined with a generous dose of concentrate feed with grains and legumes/presscake. If a normal hobby horse was fed a diet like this they would turn obese almost instantly. In fact hobby horses usually require as poor quality feed as possible because it turns out that being ridden at walking speed for an hour 1-2 times a week is a very low amount of exercise for a horse. You have to intentionally grow as rough and low quality grass as possible for the horses not to get obese. That's why oats are no longer given to horses. A race horse or a working horse that's active for several hours a day can however be given oats or other concentrated feed and may be able to handle, or at least come close to handling, a dairy cow type diet. However these types of hard working horses are rare nowadays.
TLDR dairy cows and horses generally do NOT eat the same diet.
Also, I'm not sure that cows are really all that fat in the first place. They're more big than fat.
They need lots of room for their ridiculous digestive system.
Yep especially Holstein are just bones man. Bones and udders.
That's baffling. If he's really 2% body fat, all of his fat must be in his second chin. I think he's supposed to be strong like the world's strongest man competitors who are noticeably fat, but they wouldn't have 2% body fat. If Fisk is 2% body fat, then if you saw him naked, he'd have one of the most bizarre looking bodies. All fat around the head and hands, and absolutely ripped everywhere else.
Horse gets more exercise. So there's that
So, you're calling them a lazy cow?!?
Not lazy, just inactive.
The cow can move when it wants to. It is not stuck
Big bones
Oh, a spherical cow!
The cow's eyebrow cracked me up
Just built different tbh.
Genetics