Chicken Digestive System

Like a human a chicken breaks down its food by mechanical and chemical means. Unlike us the poor old hen does not have teeth; therefore, after it’s been softened a bit by the digestive juices in its beak/mouth, it swallows the food whole without chewing.

From the mouth the food travels down the oesophagus into the “crop”. The crop is temporary storage pouch at the base of the neck where food is held until the gizzard (chickens equivalent of our stomach) is ready for it. When the crop is empty hunger messages are sent to the chicken’s brain. When the crop is very full you can feel it if you massage the chicken’s chest.

The food then passes through the proventriculus where it is mixed with some more digestive juices (enzymes and acids) and then it enters the gizzard. The gizzard acts like a food processor and grinds the food into a mash. There is grit in the gizzard that helps this process (which is why it is important that your chicken has access to grit). If the food isn’t ground down properly at this stage because of lack of grit, this can lead to a problem known as “compacted crop” – which basically mean the digestive system gets blocked (painful).

The food then travels down the small intestine where more enzymes break down the food into its component parts (protein, fats etc) which get absorbed from the intestine and stored in various organs etc giving our chicken lots of energy for laying eggs and scratching around.