The avian Digestive
System
Types of Digestive Tracts
• Monogastric: one stomach
• Ruminant: multiple chambers
• Modified Monogastric: poultry/birds
Function of Digestive Tract
• Provide nutrients to the body
Modified Monogastric
Poultry/Birds
Mouth (beak)
• No teeth – replaced by beak
Esophagus
• The tube that connects
• the mouth with the rest of
• the body
Crop
• Located in the neck region of the bird
• Part of the esophagus
• Used to store food until the bird is ready to
digest more food
• Food is softened by saliva and secretions
from the crop wall
Proventriculus
• True Stomach
• Secretes enzymes
• Passageway between crop and gizzard
Gizzard
• Unique to birds
• End of stomach before duodenum
• Made up of two smooth muscles
• Contains grit which acts as the birds teeth
• Feed is crushed and mixed with digestive
juices
Small Intestine
• Made up of two parts
– duodenum
– lower small intestine
• Important to absorb nutrients
Ceca
• Have no real function
Large Intestine
• Additional absorption of water
Pancreas
• Located in the center of the duodenal loop
• Secretes pancreatic juice which neutralizes
the enzymes secreted by the Proventriculus
• Helps break down fat
Liver
• Produces a dark green substance called bile
• Bile is necessary for the absorption of fat
• Bile is stored in the Gall Bladder
Cloaca
• The end of three different tracts
– digestive
– reproductive
– excretory
Beak/Mouth As with most birds, a chicken
obtains feed by using its beak. Food picked up
by the beak enters the mouth. Chickens do not
have teeth, so they cannot chew their food.
However, the mouth contains glands that
secrete saliva, which wets the feed to make it
easier to swallow. Also, the saliva contains
enzymes, such as amylase, that start the
digestion process. The chicken uses its tongue
to push the feed to the back of the mouth to be
swallowed.
Esophagus The esophagus is a flexible tube that
connects the mouth with the rest of the digestive
tract. It carries food from the mouth to the crop
and from the crop to the proventriculus
The crop is an out-pocketing of the esophagus
and is located just outside the body cavity in
the neck region. Swallowed feed and water are
stored in the crop until they are passed to the
rest of the digestive tract. When the crop is
empty or nearly empty, it sends hunger signals
to the brain so that the chicken will eat more.
Although the digestive enzymes secreted in the
mouth began the digestion process, very little
digestion takes place in the crop—it is simply a
temporary storage pouch. The crop evolved for
birds that are typically hunted by other animals
but need to move to the open to find feed. These
birds can consume relatively large amounts of
food quickly and then move to a more secure
location to digest that food.
Occasionally, the crop becomes impacted, or
backed up. This problem—called crop impaction,
crop binding, or pendulous crop—can occur when
a chicken goes a long time without feed and then
eats too much too quickly when feed is available
again. Crop impaction also can occur when a
chicken free-ranges on a pasture of tough, fibrous
vegetation or eats long pieces of string. With crop
impaction, even if a chicken continues to eat, the
feed cannot pass the impacted crop. The swollen
crop also can block the windpipe, causing the
chicken to suffocate
Proventriculus The esophagus continues past the
crop, connecting the crop to the proventriculus.
The proventriculus (also known as the true
stomach) is the glandular stomach where digestion
primarily begins. Hydrochloric acid and digestive
enzymes, such as pepsin, are added to the feed
here and begin to break it down more significantly
than the enzymes secreted by the salivary glands.
At this point, however, the food has not yet been
ground—this organ is called the proventriculus
because its location in the digestive tract is before
the ventriculus, where food is ground
Ventriculus (Gizzard) The ventriculus, or
gizzard, is a part of the digestive tract of birds,
reptiles, earthworms, and fish. Often referred
to as the mechanical stomach, the gizzard is
made up of two sets of strong muscles that act
as the bird's teeth and has a thick lining that
protects those muscles. Consumed feed and
the digestive juices from the salivary glands
and proventriculus pass into the gizzard for
grinding, mixing, and mashing.
When allowed to free-range, chickens typically eat small stones.
The acidic environment in the proventriculus softens the
stones, and then the strong muscles of the gizzard grind them into
tiny pieces. The stones remain in the gizzard until they are ground
into pieces small enough to pass to the rest of the digestive tract.
Grit, a commercial product made up of small stones, can be used
as a supplement to chicken feed. Chickens fed only commercially
prepared feed do not need grit. Chickens that eat whole grains or
chickens kept on pasture that do not consume enough pebbles with
the forage typically require a supplementation of grit. Grit should
not be confused with limestone or oystershell, which are given to
laying hens as sources of calcium for their eggs' shells.
When a chicken eats a small, sharp object, such
as a tack or staple, the object is likely to get stuck
in the gizzard. Because of the strong grinding
motion of the gizzard's muscles, such sharp
objects can put holes in the gizzard wall.
Chickens with damaged gizzards grow thin and
eventually die. Preventing this situation is a good
reason to keep a poultry house free of nails, glass
shards, bits of wire, and so on.
Small Intestine The small intestine is made up of the
duodenum (also referred to as the duodenal loop) and
the lower small intestine. The remainder of the
digestion occurs in the duodenum, and the released
nutrients are absorbed mainly in the lower small
intestine.
The duodenum receives digestive enzymes and
bicarbonate (to counter the hydrochloric acid from the
proventriculus) from the pancreas and bile from the
liver (via the gall bladder). The digestive juices
produced by the pancreas are involved primarily in
protein digestion. Bile is a detergent that is important
in the digestion of lipids and the absorption of fat-
soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K).
The lower small intestine is composed of two
parts, the jejunum and the ileum. The
Meckel's diverticulum marks the end of the
jejunum and the start of the ileum. The
Meckel's diverticulum is formed during a
chicken's embryonic stage. In the egg, the
yolk sac supplies the nutrients needed for the
embryo to develop and grow. Right before
hatch, the yolk sac is taken into the navel
cavity of the embryo. The residual tiny sac is
the Meckel's diverticulum.
Ceca The ceca (plural form of cecum) are two blind
pouches located where the small and large intestines
join. Some of the water remaining in the digested
material is reabsorbed here. Another important function
of the ceca is the fermentation of any remaining coarse
materials. During this fermentation, the ceca produce
several fatty acids as well as the eight B vitamins
(thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid,
pyridoxine, biotin, folic acid, and vitamin B12).
Because the ceca are located so close to the end of the
digestive tract, however, few of the produced nutrients
are absorbed and available to the chicken.
.
Large Intestine (Colon) Despite the name,
the large intestine is actually shorter than the
small intestine. The large intestine is where
the last of the water reabsorption occurs
Cloaca In the cloaca, the digestive wastes mix with
wastes from the urinary system (urates). Chickens
usually void fecal material as digestive waste with uric
acid crystals on the outer surface—that is, chickens do
not urinate. The color and texture of chicken fecal
material can indicate the health status of the chicken's
digestive tract: the white, pasty material coating
chicken fecal material is uric acid, the avian form of
urine, and is normal.
The reproductive tract also exits through this
area. When a hen lays an egg, the vagina folds over to
allow the egg to leave through the cloaca opening
without coming into contact with feces or urine.
Intestinal Microflora
Both the small and large intestines normally are
populated with beneficial organisms (bacteria, yeast, etc.),
referred to as microflora (micro meaning "small" and flora
meaning "plants"). These microflora aid in digestion.
When chicks hatch, their digestive tracts are virtually sterile. If
raised by a mother hen, a chick obtains the beneficial
microflora by consuming some of its mother's fecal material.
In artificial incubation and brooding, chicks do not have this
option. In such situations, producers can provide the chicks
with
probiotics, which are preparations containing the beneficial
microflora that normally inhabit a chicken's digestive
tract. Through the probiotics, the chicks receive the beneficial
bacteria they need to fight off infection by pathogenic bacteria,
such as salmonella
Intestinal disease in chickens normally occurs
when the balance of normal microflora is
upset—that is, the normal microflora are over
run by too many foreign organisms. The
result is enteritis, or inflammation of the
intestines. Enteritis produces symptoms that
include diarrhea, increased thirst,
dehydration, loss of appetite, weakness, and
weight loss or slow growth. Severe damage to
the intestinal tract typically is called necrotic
enteritis (necrotic meaning "dead tissue"),
which is a problem in many types of
production systems.
