Today, I had a random question: why do sheep produce small, pellet-like feces? It seemed like a boring question at first, but I got curious. It became more interesting when I noticed that cattle don’t do that, even though they are also ruminants. Do smaller herbivores tend to do this? Well, moose are huge, but they do it like sheep.

Based on my quick research, it all comes down to evolution and adaptation. Generally speaking, if a species evolves to live in an environment where water is scarce, they evolve to absorb more water from their feces, resulting in smaller, drier pellets. It’s very efficient. Cattle, on the other hand, produce large, smelly pats because they don’t need to conserve as much water.

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