How to Assess Your Goat's Health by Observing Rumination If
you're new to raising goats in your effort to live sustainably,
you may not know that rumination is a good indicator of your
goat's health. Because rumination is an essential part of how
goats digest food, you can use cud-chewing habits as an
indicator of goat health. A ruminating goat is eating and
generating heat and energy. You can determine whether a goat is
ruminating in two ways: by looking for cud-chewing and by
listening to the goat's body. Goats are ruminants, which means
that they have four stomach compartments and part of their
digestive process includes regurgitating partially digested food
and chewing it, called ruminating. This kind of digestive system
needs a plant-based diet. The goat stomach consists of three
forestomachs — the rumen, reticulum, and omasum — and a true
stomach, the abomasum. The forestomachs are responsible for
grinding and digesting hay, with the help of bacteria. The last
compartment, the abomasum, is similar to th