--- title: Cows: cud, milk, burps and the red cape myth — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Cows: cud, milk, burps and the red cape myth», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Grass is so tough that people cannot get any goodness from it at all, yet a cow turns it into milk and meat. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Cows: cud, milk, burps and the red cap… # Cows: cud, milk, burps and the red cape myth Lesson 209 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/0/) — Grass is so tough that people cannot get any goodness from it at all, yet a cow turns it into milk and meat. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/1/) — Its secret is a stomach with four parts, the biggest of them a huge vat full of microbes, living things far too tiny to see, that break the grass down. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/2/) — That is why a cow lying in a field seems to chew and chew with nothing new going in: it is bringing swallowed grass back up and chewing it a second time, which is called chewing the cud. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/3/) — Cows are also more social and clever than people think: they have best friends, learn routines and their names, and the bull charging the red cape is chasing the movement, not the colour. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/4/) — A cow chews the cud: it swallows grass, later brings it back up and chews it again to break it down, for many hours a day. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/5/) — Books sometimes say a cow has four stomachs, but it really has one stomach with four parts, and the biggest part is full of microbes that break down tough grass. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/6/) — A cow makes milk only after having a calf, because, like all mammals, mothers make milk for their babies; a dairy cow can give over twenty litres a day. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/7/) — Only female cattle give milk, from the udder, the bag under the tummy: «cow» means a female, males are bulls or bullocks, the young are calves and a group is a herd. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/8/) — The microbes in a cow's stomach make methane, a gas that warms the climate, and cows burp most of it out; scientists are testing seaweed in cow feed to cut it. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/10/) — Cattle cannot see red the way we do, and a bull charges a matador's cape (the cloth a bullfighter waves) because it moves, not because it is red. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/11/) — Cows in a field often face the same way, turning their backs to wind and rain or lining up with the sun; some scientists reported they tend to line up north to south, but others could not find this, so it is still argued. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/12/) — Cows form friendships, and studies found they are calmer with a best friend nearby; calves kept with their mothers learn better social skills. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/13/) — Cows learn routines and their names, and on farms with milking robots, cows walk in by themselves when they choose to be milked. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/209-cows-cud-milk-burps-and-the-red-cape-myth/14/) — A cow has no top front teeth, only a hard pad, so it wraps its long rough tongue around grass to pull it, and that tongue is long enough to lick inside its own nostrils. - ← previous: [Hooves, riding and caring for a horse, plus donkeys and mules](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/208-hooves-riding-and-caring-for-a-horse-plus-donkeys-and-mules/) - next →: [Pigs: mud, snouts and brains](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/210-pigs-mud-snouts-and-brains/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)