Monday, June 29, 2015

Rumen Development Pictures

At a recent presentation I showed pictures (source: Penn State University) of calf rumen tissue at selected ages. The folks asked me for the link to those pictures. The link to paste into your web browser is:

http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/nutrition/calves 

Just scroll down to the heading, "Calf Rumen Images."

A sample showing a milk-fed calf is below; this is one set of two at this location. Images are for calves at 4, 6, 8 and 12 weeks of age.

Rumen Comparisons: 6 Weeks of Age

The rumen of the calf fed milk only is considerably smaller than the calf fed milk and grain.
In addition, the grain-fed calf has much darker coloration and greater papillae development than the milk only calf. The grain-fed calf has a healthy, properly developing rumen.

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