The sense of touch, or mechanosensitivity, is crucial for virtually all aspects of everyday life, yet among all the senses possessed by vertebrates, it remains least explored at the cellular and molecular levels. Key to touch sensitivity are neuronal mechanoreceptors, which constitute a minor group of neurons in the somatosensory ganglia of most vertebrates. The scarcity of neuronal mechanoreceptors coupled with the absence of unequivocal markers for their identification impedes progress in understanding the molecular mechanism of touch sensitivity. Towards this end, we developed a novel animal model - the trigeminal system of duck embryos. Ducks are tactile specialists capable of foraging by means of acute mechanosensitivity of the glabrous skin covering their bill. We found that in contrast to rodents and other vertebrates, the trigeminal ganglia innervating duck head are dominated by mechanoreceptors instead of thermoreceptors and nociceptors. Electrophysiological analysis showed that duck trigeminal neurons have an augmented ability to convert touch into excitation, presumably due to the properties of the resident stretch-sensitive ion channels. We determined that a majority of duck trigeminal neurons express mechano-activated ion channels of the Piezo and Nav classes. We explored functional properties of these channels in vitro and inquired into their contribution to mechanically activated excitatory current and action potential generation in rapidly-adapting neuronal mechanoreceptors. Our data suggest a molecular mechanism underlying the sense of touch in the glabrous skin of vertebrates.