Several disturbing photos and videos online show cows, as if with holes pierced in their sides, equipped with a plastic ring to keep their flesh open.
They are called fistulated cows, and removing a portion of these animals’ stomachs to expose their stomachs has been a long-standing practice by animal experimenters and is even done in veterinary schools.
Although many claim that the surgery does not hurt cows or shorten their life expectancy, amputations have a recovery period of four to six weeks, which no doubt makes the animals uncomfortable.
Microorganisms are studied in the stomachs of fistulous cows and are sometimes transferred to other animals. While some claim that this transfer can improve the health of the cows, the process mostly benefits the meat and dairy industries.
The cannula acts as a porthole-like device that allows access to a cow’s rumen, to conduct research and analysis of the digestive tract and allows veterinarians to transplant rumen material from one cow to another.
The rumen chamber of the stomach is most important to the digestive process, and microbes break down foods that cows are unable to digest.
If cows are having trouble with the digestive process, abdominal holes allow farmers to implant the aforementioned bacteria and fungi into their stomachs. It is only by looking at the cow that it is known whether it is getting proper nutrition or not and whether it is healthy or not.
So scientists invented a technique for the farmers. A cow is surgically implanted with a ‘cannula’ – a porthole-like opening that gives direct access to the cow’s rumen (the first chamber in the abdomen).
The only reason a cow would be selected to be cannulated is for research purposes on ruminant microbial activity and rumen digestibility of various feed and mixed rations.
This is the safest way to check the digestive process of a cow. The holes also give the farmer a chance to evaluate the digestion and provide optimum food to his cows.
In this way, they can find out about healthier varieties of crops for the needs of the cattle, making the cattle more efficient. Its use will also improve the products obtained from cattle.
Although veterinarians and bovine farmers point to the effectiveness of transfusion for treating digestive disease, many animal rights groups argue that the practice is unnecessarily harmful to a canned cow’s quality of life.
