THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF A CHICKEN

Visit our Poultry Feed Blog The Poultry Digestive System Instead of asking “Why did the chicken cross the road?” poultry hobbyists may better ask, “How does the chicken chew its feed without any teeth?” Even without teeth, chickens have one of the most efficient digestive systems in the animal kingdom. Let’s take a look at how the poultry digestive system works. Food is taken in with the beak, which is the perfect tool for pecking feed in crumble or pellet form, small grains, grass or insects. Chickens are omnivores – meaning that, in addition to a commercial feed, they can eat meat (grubs, worms, the occasional mouse) and vegetation (grass, weeds and other plants). A small bit of saliva and digestive enzymes are added as the food moves from the mouth into the esophagus. From the esophagus food moves to the crop, an expandable storage compartment located at the base of the chicken’s neck, where it can remain for up to 12 hours. The food trickles from th...

The Digestive System of a Chicken Before reading about digestive system problems in chickens, it is helpful to understand how the digestive system works. Hens don’t have teeth of course so the way they digest their food is completely different to mammals. A simplified diagram of the digestive system of a chicken. The digestive system of a chicken mechanically and chemically breaks down food and allows nutrients to be absorbed ready for use in the body. It is important to understand how the digestive system works in order to get a better idea of digestive system problems and to know what is normal (like a bulging crop or the caecal discharge). The main problems that we encounter as hobby poultry keepers in the digestive system are worms and crop problems such as impacted crop / sour crop. The basic function of the digestive system is described here: The  beak  moistens food with Saliva. Food is not chewed. The  oesophagus  takes the...

THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF A CHICKEN ADVERTISING Mouth:  A chicken can’t physically stick out her tongue or say “Ahh,” so you may never see the inside of a chicken’s mouth. If you have, you probably noticed the gaping hole in the roof of the mouth that connects with the nasal passages. What you saw wasn’t a defect. The gap is known in chicken anatomy circles as the  choana ,  and it closes when a chicken swallows, so the bird can’t do the “milk coming out of the nose” trick. Crop:  Chickens don’t have teeth, so they can’t chew food in their mouths. A chicken picks up food in her beak and swallows it with the help of her tongue. The food travels down the esophagus to the  crop  (which is really just a bulge in the esophagus), where the chicken stores the food until she can digest it at her leisure. Esophagus, stomach, and gizzard:  The esophagus continues past the crop to the true stomach, the  proventricul...