This is a quail gizzard!
This little thing contains grit used to grind up anything tough in the GI tract. Since my quail are pretty exclusively fed a processed feed, there nothing too cool in there
But clean it out and you can see the INCREDIBLY tough inner lining
It feels a little bit like wet sandpaper in there. Really cool to open up and look at.
Larger birds like chickens and turkeys that free range have gizzards full of small stones, called gastroliths. There's even a hobby some hunters have, of collecting "turkey pearls" and displaying them!
If the quail have any they are very very very small. I do wonder what the peafowl gizzards contain...















