The Surgical Removal of the Gizzard from the Domestic Fowl

DURING the course of some studies of the physiology of poultry nutrition, it became desirable to study the functions of the gizzard by the indirect method of extirpation. Inasmuch as a search of the literature failed to disclose a technic for the surgical removal of the gizzard from the domestic fowl, the author presents the following technic which has been used successfully at Beltsville Research Center during the last two years. The preparations have been used by Burrows, Fritz, and Titus (1935) in a study of the blood sugar level, as affected by the gizzard, and by Fritz, Burrows, and Titus (1935) in a comparison of digestibility in gizzardectomized and normal fowl. THE TECHNIC The bird is fasted 48 hours and prepared for operation in the usual manner. Anesthesia is applied and when the feathers become loosened, as they do under general anesthesia, the area in which the incision is . . .