Animal Digestion

Digestive disorders in animals may often show the same symptoms: diarrhoea, vomiting, lack of appetite, listlessness, obvious pain...but their causes are many and varied.

Ruminants (Sheep, Goats, Cattle, Deer, Llamas etc)

Horses

Rabbits

Other Mammals

Poultry

Birds swallow food whole instead of chewing it, and store it temporarily in a sac called a crop. Feeling a bird's crop is a sure way of telling he is eating. From there is moves down to the gizzard. A bird's gizzard should contain tiny grit to enable it to grind up the food it swallowed. Therefore any bird who is not able to find its own grit in pasture must be offered some regularly. Digestive disorders in poultry include Coccidiosis, Worms, and Salmonella. Obviously prevention by good hygiene, and quarantine of newly introduced birds to the flock is the best prevention.