As far as I am aware, grazing animals like cows or sheep poop in the same meadows where they eat grass, but presumably don’t have any problems eating the grass and pooping in the same space. But if humans would eat vegetables that they had pooped on, my understanding is that we would get sick.

Why? Am I incorrect that grazing animals poop where they eat? Are their stomachs more resistant to whatever makes it dangerous?

Thank you!

  • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
    20·
    3 months ago

    My rabbits eat poop hay but not pee hay. They actually have special poops that they have to eat called cecotropes so I’m guessing their gut microbiome is more beneficial than ours. Also because they are hind gut fermenters, the bacteria necessary for the fermentation are probably different than the ones in our gut.

    • takeheart@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, rabbits as a species are not only tolerant to eating their own poop pellets but also gain calory extraction benefits from it. Usually mammals don’t completely break down food they eat, ie there is still energy to be gained from it. Microorganisms have the necessary biochemical pathways to do it but for mammals it’s not efficient.

      Basically any animal has only a few ways to into crease its energy budget. First it can simply eat more or more rapidly. Second it can find ways to make use of resources that are less contested (think of a giraffe reaching for the top of a tree or a koala being able to digest eucalyptus leaves). Third it can simply be more efficient: that’s the slow metabolism of a sloth, but also a rabbit eating it’s own feces alongside fresh food. It’s basically an evolutionary strategy to extract more energy from the environment.

  • BirdEnjoyer@kbin.social
    163·
    3 months ago

    Well, its kinda like how dogs can be treated with a lot of cancer drugs people can’t- its largely a matter of longevity and personhood. Just load 'em up with stuff that’ll cause all kinds of crazy side effects in a decade or so, if they’re at least six, even in longer lived breeds. (assuming its a bad form of cancer in the first place)

    Sheep don’t have to worry about the things people have to worry about when they aren’t going to have to use the same body for the better part of a century.
    So yes, they do get sick, but its not regarded as the same level of devastation because its an animal, you can use harsher treatments, and you’re not looking at the same level of magnitude of suffering or life lost.

    We also work a lot harder to keep a lot more physically frail individuals alive whom would otherwise just be dead if they were sheep. For example, I had a doting mother who got me medical attention for my frequent dehydration as a child, and I am now able to advocate for myself when I have those episodes.
    A sheep who couldn’t tolerate something foul on some grass would have likely died as a lamb and have just been a sad statistic before they even developed enough to graze.

    If we had much shorter lifespans, we’d honestly be some pretty rugged creatures. Our stomachs are only .5 less acidic than some carrion birds. More acidic than most carnivores.
    No worries about preserving teeth or joints, eat what you want, its literally Yolo!

    Our brains, vision, bipedalism and weird vomiting thing are pretty damn sensitive though.
    A lot of animals don’t have such a vomit issue. Rats literally can’t vomit, iirc.