The Value of Grit for Chickens and Turkeys

SINCE chickens and turkeys are not equipped with teeth, the gizzard must take over the function of reducing the size of the coarse particles of food so that it can be acted upon efficiently by the enzymes concerned in digestion and assimilation. This grinding process is aided considerably by furnishing the birds with a hard, insoluble grit which, upon being consumed by the chicken or turkey, passes to the gizzard and remains there for a considerable period of time (Kaupp and Ivey, 1923), passing on through the remainder of the digestive tract only after it has been reduced by the grinding process to a size no longer capable of aiding in the attrition of the coarse particles of food. Upon finding that the gizzards of hens fed crushed limestone or crushed oyster shell contained approximately the same amounts of mineral material as hens fed granite grit, Waite (1935) concluded that …