Avian Digestive System

by Sherri Carpenter
Winter 2003

Avian Digestive System

The body is divided into different systems and their organs.

Each system has an influence on another system and they all
work together to create homeostasis. Our birds’ bodies need
fuel to go about their daily activities, and this is where the
digestive system plays its role. It converts food into raw
materials that build and fuel the body’s cells. It takes in food,
breaks down nutrient molecules, absorbs them into the blood
stream and rids the body of the indigestible remains.

Esophagus and Crop

As your bird swallows its food, it is mixed with saliva (mucus)

to lubricate it down the esophagus (food tube) tube. In humans,
the saliva starts the breakdown of starch. The food travels down the esophagus with wave like
muscle contractions called peristalsis, and for most birds, it winds up in the crop (ingluvies).
Here the food sits and softens before it enters the stomach. Parrots use this softened food to
regurgitate to their young, while pigeons and doves make a crop milk to feed, for the first few
weeks of their young babies’ lives.

Proventriuculus

Most birds have a two-part stomach, one that is glandular and one that is muscular. The first
and glandular one is the proventriculus, which is where digestion first begins. Specialized
glands, regulated by hormonal and neural factors, secrete gastric juices. The juices are a
mixture (not necessarily equal) of digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid, and mucus.
Hydrochloric acid activates the digestive enzymes (pepsinogen) and the mucus protects the
lining from being digested itself. This is the beginning of the chemical digestion of proteins.

Gizzard

The food is then propelled to the second stomach, the gizzard or ventriculus. The ventriculus
is a thick-walled, muscular organ, and with some birds may contain small stones that aid in
the breaking up the food. The ventriculus grinds up food mixed with gastric juices into small
pieces, to make it more easily digested. The food may pass back and forth from the
proventriculus to the ventriculus, to better aid in the breaking down of food, if needed.

Small Intestines

From the ventriculus, the food enters the small intestines through a valve called the pylorus.
The pylorus only allows a small amount of food to pass at a time, to the small intestines, to
allow for digestion to take place.

The small intestines are lined with villi and microvilli. Villi are
fingerlike projections and in each villus, there is a rich
capillary bed and a modified lymphatic capillary. The
microvilli are tiny projections that line the outside of the villi
and carry enzymes that break down double sugars into simple
sugars and complete protein digestion. As the food is broken
down into smaller particles, it is absorbed into the capillary
systems and transported back to the liver.

There are three sections in the small intestines, the

 duodenum,
 jejunum, and the
 ileum, which connects to the large intestine.

Liver, Pancreas and Duodenum

The liver and the pancreas secrete their fluids to the duodenum through a common duct. The
pancreas produces enzymes that break down all categories of digestible foods. The enzymes
will complete the digestion of starch, carry out half of protein digestion and is responsible for
all fat digestion. It neutralizes the acid food mixture coming in from the ventriculus, and
provides the right environment for the activation of the digestive enzymes. It also produces
the hormones insulin and glucagon, which regulate blood sugar.

A bird’s liver has two lobes instead of the four found in humans. In digestion, its primary
function is to produce bile. Bile is a watery solution that contains bile salts, bile pigments
(mostly bilirubin, a breakdown of hemoglobin), cholesterol, phospholipids, and a variety of
electrolytes. In digestion, only the bile salts (derived from cholesterol) and phospholipids aid
in the process. Bile salts break down fat globules into smaller ones so that the pancreas’ fat-
digestion enzymes have a smaller surface to work with. Certain cells of the liver destroy
bacteria that have managed to get through the walls of the digestive tract and into the blood.

Another role of the liver is to detoxify drugs, degrade hormones, make many substances vital
to the body as a whole (cholesterol, blood proteins, clotting proteins and lipoproteins), and
play a role in metabolism.

The liver processes nearly every class of nutrient that comes in from the blood of the
digestive tract. As the blood circulates through the liver, the liver pulls out amino acids, fatty
acids and glucose and takes what its cells need and either stores the rest for latter or processes
them and returns them to the blood to be used by other cells in the body.
The liver also has a role in maintaining glucose level in the blood. When carbohydrates are
broken down to glucose, the liver removes these from the blood and forms large
polysaccharide molecules called glycogen and stores them. As the body’s cells use glucose
and the level in the blood drops, the liver will than take its polysaccharide molecules and
break them down to simple sugars (glucose) and release them bit by bit into the blood to
circulate through the body. The liver may also use fats or proteins to make glucose if
carbohydrates are not available.

Gallbladder

The gallbladder is the storage house for bile and is connected to the duodenum through the
cystic duct. The bile is concentrated by the removal of water and is made available to the
duodenum when fatty foods stimulate a hormone response to gallbladder to send out the
stored bile. Parrots do not have a gallbladder.

Large Intestine

The large intestines (colon) are relatively short in birds compared to mammals. This helps
with quicker elimination to prepare for flight. The large intestine’s main function is to absorb
water, dry out indigestible foods and eliminate waste products. The large intestines have
bacteria that metabolize remaining nutrients, make the vitamins K and some B, and than
absorb them back into the system along with water. Some birds have paired ceca that harbor
bacteria, which aid in the breakup of cellulose. Parrots do not have ceca.

Cloaca

The large intestines join the cloaca, which is where the feces meet with urates and urine, from
the kidneys, and than pass out through the vent. The urates are usually whitish in color and
the feces are usually brown or green depending on what your bird has just eaten.

I’m hoping that by learning more about the digestive system we are better able to understand
how important the foods we choose affect our birds bodies. The process of digestion goes on
to feed all the cells in the body. As the old saying goes, you are what you eat. Chow.