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Avian Digestive Adaptations

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State

Birds lack teeth, instead using a crop to store food and a two-chambered stomach — the proventriculus for gastric juices, the gizzard for grinding.

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Some birds swallow grit that lodges in the gizzard to help grind food in place of teeth.

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The gizzard grinds food mechanically with swallowed grit — it secretes no digestive enzymes itself; the proventriculus supplies those.