Differentiate between the digestive systems of the sheep and poultry. Illustrate your answers with clearly labelled diagrams.
Explanation
Differences between the digestive (alimentary) system of the sheep and the poultry are:
(i) sheep have alimentary canal that are better adapted for use of grasses forages than poultry.
(ii) sheep have complex stomach while poultry have simple stomach.
(iii) gastrointestine tracts of poultry consists of oesophagus leading into a crop which passes into the duodenum ( small intestine) through a proventriculus and gizzard.
(iv) poultry eat low fibre feed like grains (maize, guinea corn) which mix with digestive juice in the crop for digestion of starch b enzymes in the saliva.
(v) the grains move into the gizzard which is thick-walled and rough.
(vi) it contains grit and stones which help to grind grains into smaller pieces, facilitate further action of digestive juices.
(vii) alimentary canal of sheep has complicated stomach made up of for chamber - rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasu
(viii) the rumen acts like crop of the poultry, but because sheep possess teeth, they do not need a gizzard.
(ix) sheep have micro-organisms in their rumen which help to break down the cellulose and cell wall of grass.
(x) the sheep che, the cud by regurgitation and remastication thoroughly, mixed with saliva and swallowed. With more microbial action in the rumen, the ingesta is passed into the abomasum or true stomach.
(xi) sheep have teeth and poultry have none.
