Taste receptors detect nutrient substances and toxic compounds and are essential in animals for maintaining body health and energy balance. Chickens can recognize four out of five basic tastes including bitter, sour, salty, and umami tastes but not sweet. Umami is a pleasant taste that is responsible for recognizing protein and has been found in the chicken genome. Recent studies have found that these receptors in the gut function as chemosensors for detecting chemical signals of luminal nutrients. However, the location and pattern of development in the gut umami taste receptor is unknown in chickens. This study aims to investigate the localization of umami taste receptors and their expression in the gut during embryonic and post-hatch development. Our results showed that umami taste receptors are widely expressed in the different tissues and in the intestine during late embryonic and post-hatch development in broiler chickens. The jejunum had the highest (P < 0.05) expression level of umami receptors in the intestine in 35d broiler chickens. Furthermore, jejunal T1R1/T1R3 mRNA abundance increased with age during late embryonic development in chickens. The expression of T1R1 in the duodenum and jejunum changed quadratically (P < 0.05), while the linear and quadratic patterns of changes (P < 0.05) were found in the colon during post-hatch development. These results demonstrated that chicken umami receptors T1R1/T1R3 are expressed in the intestine in the late embryonic stage and post-hatching stage and their level of expression may have been affected by the ages of embryonic and post-hatch development. In order to gain further insight into the potential ligands of chicken umami receptors, molecular docking was followed. Ligand docking results showed that chicken T1R1/T1R3 may be broadly tuned by L-amino acids, peptides, and nucleotides. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to validate docking results and to investigate cell signaling pathways activated by potential umami substances. These findings may have profound implications for novel therapeutic and new feed additives innovation based on the gut expression pattern of chickens during development.