MBARARA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE

AND TECHNOLOGY
BIO 2204: ORNITHOLOGY AND MAMMOLOGY
GROUP ONE PRESENTESATION.

Asimiirwe Prossy 2022/BS/110/PS

Nuwagaba Juliana 2022/BS/115/PS

Babirye Ruth 2022/BS/127/PS

 Key terms
• Nutrition is the process of providing and obtaining the
food necessary for the health and growth of animals.
• A flock is a gathering of individual birds to travel or forage
collectively.
• Roosting is a phenomenon when birds sleep or settle to
rest.
• Foraging is the time in which bird spends its day flying to
and looking for food.
• Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food
compounds into small soluble components so that they
can be absorbed into the blood plasma.
 NUTRITION IN BIRDS.
• Birds are grouped basing on their feeding habits,
• Birds may eat different kinds of food at different
stages on their life history.
• E.g. Robins feed largely on worms and other
invertebrates when these foods are available. Robins
may feed on berries (fruits like tomato) in the winter.
• The feeding habits of some birds are harmful to man.
• Birds damage orchard and grain crops. Millions of birds are
collected in local area due to flocking and roosting habits in
birds.
• They destroy fields of grain.
• Birds of prey have no minimum impact on populations of
poultry and game birds and on fisheries. it has been mistaken
though that they are responsible for these losses thus humans
are killing them by poison or shooting them.
 Cont’d
• Birds feel great appetites. This appetite support a high
metabolic rate.
• High metabolic rate is necessary for endotherm and
flight.
• E.g. humming birds feed during the day but they can’t
maintain metabolism at night. Therefore they become
torpid at night.
• They reduce temperature and respiration rate. They
again become active and feed in the morning.
 Bill and tongue
• The bills and tongues of birds are modified for different
feeding habits and food sources.
• The tongue of woodpecker is barbed.it is used for extracting
grubs(larvae of insects) from the bark of trees.
 Cont’d
• Sap suckers dig holes in trees.it uses a brush like tongue for
licking the sap from the holes.
• Humming birds are nector feeders. Their tongues roll to form
a tube for extracting nector from flowers.
 The digestive system of birds.
• The digestive system of any animal is important in converting the
food into nutrients the body requires for growth, maintenance
and production (e.g. egg production).
• Food is broken down both by mechanical and chemical means in
animals.
✓In many animals, mechanical means involves chewing but because
birds lack teeth, they use other mechanical means during digestion.
• Chemical action includes the release of digestive enzymes and
fluids from various parts of the digestive system.
✓There after, released nutrients are absorbed and distributed
throughout the animal's body.
Parts of the digestive tract.
Parts of the digestive tract.
Parts of the digestive system
 Parts of the digestive system;
• The chicken has a typical digestive tract.
• The digestive tract (also referred to as the
gastrointestinal or GI tract) begins at the mouth,
includes several important organs and ends at the
cloaca.
 MOUTH/ BEAK
• Birds obtain feed by using their beak.
• Food picked up by the beak enters the mouth.
• Birds 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 bird 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.
Crop
• 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.
 Crop cont’d
• When the crop is empty or nearly empty, it sends
hunger signals to the brain so that the chicken will eat
more.
Pigeons are noted for their ability to produce “pigeon
milk”.
• This is a cheesy secretion, which results from the
degeneration of cells lining the crop, and is used for
nourishing their young.
• 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.
 Crop cont’d
• 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.
• Crop impaction/ crop binding/ pendulous crop occurs
when a chicken goes a long time without feed is
available again.
✓Crop impaction also can occur when a chicken free
ranges on tough fibrous vegetation or eats long pieces of
string
 Crop cont’d
• With crop impaction, even if the chicken
continues to eat, the feed cannot pass the
impacted crop.
• The swollen crop can also block the windpipe
 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 from 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.
• It 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.
• It 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
Proventriculus vs ventriculus
 Small intestines
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 from the pancreas.
✓The bicarbonate encounters the hydrochloric acid
from the proventriculus.
✓The digestive enzymes are primarily involved in the
 Small intestines
• The duodenum also receives bile from the liver, via
the gall bladder.
✓Bile is important in lipid digestion and 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.
 ceca
• The ceca (cecum- singular) 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).
 Ceca cont’d
• Because the ceca are located so close to the
end of the digestive tract, few of the produced
nutrients are absorbed and available to the
chicken.
 Large intestines
• Despite the name, the large intestine is actually
shorter than the small intestine.
• It is here that water reabsorption last occurs.
Cloaca
• In the cloaca, the digestive wastes mix with wastes
from the urinary system (urates).
• Birds usually void fecal material as digestive waste
with uric acid crystals on the outer surface.
• Therefore, chickens do not urinate.
 Cloaca cont’d
• 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 fecal
material.