Mill in the belly
Chickens – birds in prehistory
Stomach pebbles or grit are small stones that help the chickens to digest their food. Because chickens have no teeth in their beaks, they cannot chew. They still try to chop things up with their beaks or shake them to pieces, but they don’t always succeed. Before someone steals it from them during this downsizing operation, you swallow it quickly.
The very first bird to circle above our earth at some point in the Cretaceous period still had teeth in its beak. Over millions of years of evolution, our birds have lost this practical tool for crushing food, some of which is quite solid.
So nature proved to be inventive. Chickens “chew” their food with the help of these pebbles in the gizzard after the food has been soaked in the glandular stomach. Similar to crocodiles that tear large chunks out of their prey and devour them in one piece. They also need stones in their stomachs to help them digest and break them down – just a few sizes bigger.
There they act like millstones, making the crushed grains more digestible. Even if the chickens are allowed to roam freely, it is always advisable to give them a handful of pebbles regularly, as not every garden has enough small stones.