ABSTRACT
Cattle are used infrequently as laboratory animals, compared with smaller animals, such as rodents and zebrafish, which are used extensively for medical and genetic research, respectively. Recently, a new type of cattle research has emerged, which seeks to address the damaging effect that cattle have on the local and global environment, including global climate change. Cattle parts are also used in research, obtained usually at abattoirs. Early research in the 20th century often focused on the digestive function of cattle, since feed represents about 70% of the economic input into a cattle farm. Much laboratory research with cattle has been conducted by restraining them individually in metabolism crates. Grazing cattle, known to be selective in their grazing habits, have also been fistulated in their esophagus to determine the digestibility of herbage actually consumed by the animal, rather than that present in the field.
