Cows can sleep standing up, but not in a deep sleep, they sleep lightly while standing up.When it comes to deep sleep or rem sleep, cows like the rest of us, lie down and sleep. Cows are large land herbivores and as a number of other herbivores, cows can doze off on their feet like most four-legged herbivores e.g bison, rhinos, horses, elephants, cows, and zebras.Cows can doze off on their feet, but only experience deep rem sleep lying down. Cows and other four-legged animals such as bison, horses, rhinos, elephants, and zebras were born under mother nature’s supervision before being domesticated, and their behavior shows predator readiness. Cows are continuously on high alert because they are constantly on the watch for predators such as bears, wolves, coyotes, and others who may have a negative impact on them. Though cows are now domesticated animals and live in dairy farms, this alertness is built into their system. We can call it ‘catnap’ for cow dozing. The actual sleeping hours of cows may be less compared to humans but cows’ legs are strong enough for dozing off. Cud is the partially digested food that a cow regurgitates to be chewed again when it is in half on its knees. Even when the cows are sleeping, they stay active enough to look for predators, though it is rare to look for a cow sleeping for long hours.Read on for more. You can also read cow facts and do deer move in the rain.Why do cows sleep standing up?A cow may sleep and doze while standing up because its limbs include ligaments and tendons that allow the animal to stand with minimum physical exertion, therefore, enabling it to stand and even doze for lengthy periods of time. It is generally because cows are animals of mother nature and as all herbivores, their evolution is designed to be alert to predators, and hence cows doze of for quite less time so as to prevent themselves from potential danger.A cow, in fact, lies down to rest. Cows need to get some rest from standing and dry the moisture while wandering around. As cows are ruminant i.e. a cow eats first and chews later like cows graze the grasslands or dairy farms rapidly filing the rumen or the first chamber of the stomach with grass swallowed as a whole. They later find a comfortable spot to chew the grass while lying down. We call this ‘controlled vomit’ as cows start the hard work to bring back small amounts of grass called ‘cud’ while lying down and trying to quickly digest the food. The circulation of blood in the cow also improves. Any animal needs sleep to stay healthy and the same goes for cows. A cow may doze off while standing but it is comfortable for her in this way as cows need little sleep hardly four hours a day in rem sleep and sleep standing for a few minutes to take rest.While cows may spend half of the day lying down, they only sleep for a percentage of that time and spend the rest of their time resting. Our bovine companions sleep for about four hours each day, which is just about 16.4% of a 24-hour period as compared to us humans, who sleep for more than eight hours every day. Their sleep time is very low when compared to koalas, who sleep for 18-22 hours a day. While standing, the cow’s legs are aligned vertically and this is basically related to the cow’s evolutionary times to protect her from predators. It’s like we are camping in the deep woods and not sleeping because we wonder if a coyote or bear is around us, same is with cows, they tend to doze off standing as it is more comfortable to detect the predator and quickly react to it. Due to their short legs, they cannot roll over or sit down.What position does a cow sleep in?Like most big animals, cows can doze off on their feet, but sleep deeply lying down. Whenever a cow wants to sleep it lies down and stretches out flat on its side. It happens only when a cow has a partner to keep watch.Approximately a cow takes around 4o winks at a time. While lying down and sleeping, a cow’s blood circulation increases, and the food she had eaten digests more quickly and gives rest to her legs too. A cow always lies on her chest and almost never on her sides as the gravity of the food in her stomach is such that a cow cannot lie down on her sides. In a well-designed barn, a cow can have a comfortable place to lie down and have access to a balanced diet to provide milk production.How many hours a day do cows sleep?Cows require significantly less sleep than humans. They sleep for around four hours every day. While cows sleep for 16% of the day, they doze off or sleep standing up for around eight hours every day. Cows usually sleep around three to four hours a day. Cows don’t sleep in one go as us humans and take a few shorter periods of time or frequent naps especially at night which is around one to five minutes. Cows usually wake up before five which is the time it is ready to be milked.Cows relax frequently instead of sleeping. Cows spend only half of the day lying, but sleep for a very portion of that time. They just relax in the remaining time. Our big bovine friends give only three to four hours to sleep from the 24-hour period. Humans need double of that time to sleep effectively. Cows don’t sleep for four hours straight, they do that in small chunks of short naps in a day.How long can a cow lay down before it dies?The most common disease is calcium deficiency in a cow’s body, as the muscles of legs and head start trembling and the cow has difficulty in standing and walking and eventually after a long struggle a cow lies down on its chest with the neck twisted to one side. Most cows die within 12 hours if not treated on time and are called recumbent animals.The other reason is that a cow gets little food or food of poor quality and starts to lose weight rapidly called malnutrition which invites disease to its immune system which gets weakened. Usually, a cow takes around 12 hours to die before the symptoms arise which include malnutrition, diseases like parasites in the blood, three-day sickness, dislocated hips, broken bones, foot rot, and arthritis. All these factors are cumbersome for cows and they could not survive and die within 12 hours of getting the disease. Large body animals like elephants and horses are attentive species but need long hours to sleep than cows to stay active.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for do cows sleep standing up, then why not take a look at how hot is magma or how fast does electricity travel?
Cows can sleep standing up, but not in a deep sleep, they sleep lightly while standing up.
