Midwinter Anemia

[Avatar of Shibby]

Over the past week I almost lost my Red Tail, Bertha. It was very scary. I’ve worked for three years to get my first bird, and I almost lost her. I’ve just gotten the ok from the vet, Dr. Moore to begin my training again. I don’t want anyone to have to see their BoP were I saw mine so I’m going to share my story.
Bertha’s trap weight was 1157g (grams). After a twenty four hour period she had dropped to 1057g. I determined this as her ‘true weight’, accounting for what ever food she had eaten before I acquired her. After eighteen days (November 19) I had her down to around the twenty percent mark of 826g. We were out side flying on a creance, and I was going to introduce the lure. I was keeping in close contact with my sponsor over the weight and responses of the bird, and I was told to not go below 775g. Two days later I had her down to 785g, and I chose this day (November 21) to introduce the lure, because I knew that a cold front was due that night. I introduced the lure with an entire quail breast attached, and fed her up on that. Accounting for the amount of food, and the cold front I was predicting that her weight would be around 850g. The front rolled through and plummeted the temperature from the mid seventies of that day to the high thirties in the night.
The next day I took her out of the mews and weighed her and discovered that she had dropped an entire 100g over that night! That was one seventh of her body weight and this sent all kinds of alarms ringing for me. The bird was still acting normal in behavior, but I knew that a weight loss of that much was not good. I instantly called my sponsor and a few other falconers to see what I should do. I was told that with our temperature drop that it wasn’t that big of a deal, and that I should keep her inside and feed her up slowly over the entire day. So I did that.
Over the next six days her weight was very irregular. On the fifth day from her rapid drop I had fed her up an entire quail and her weight only increased 25g the next day. At this point I realized that this had gone outta my control and I needed to get her to the vet. I took her to Dr. Moore on the afternoon of November 26th, along with a bag of six of my home grown quail. At this point I was thinking that she must have had some kind of internal parasite that had gotten outta hand with her low condition.
The next day in the evening I received a call from one of the vet techs asking if I wanted to come to the hospital and visit Bertha. Without thought I said yes and would be there as soon as I could. I arrived at the vets and learned that she had an entirely different condition that what I had though.
She had a classic example of midwinter anemia. Midwinter anemia is brought about by starvation of the bird during training. By not feeding her regularly the metabolism will draw upon protein from the body (muscles and blood) to get fast energy. This use of protein leads to anemia. The use of the protein will lead to a loss of rapid energy resources and impairs the body from working right. Mainly meaning; muscle being ate away, dysfunctional metabolism, and dehydration.
Dr. Moore gave her a forty to sixty chance of survival. Death would be from mineral deficiency or kidney failure. Bertha remained under the careful and close care of Dr. Moore for four days. Afterwards she was released under my care and I was given vitamin supplement and told to keep her inside and well fed. I returned this evening (December 5) for a check up, and was told that she was ready to begin training again.
Basically I learned two key points. The first being always feed some thing to the bird even if it is washed meat to the bird to keep the metabolism working properly. The second is to not be so dependant on the scale. The scale only shows her weight and not the actual condition of the body. The keel needs to be felt to make sure that conditions are good. A fat bird with little muscle mass can weigh the same as a skinny bird with high muscle mass. The conditions of the birds are not the same though.

[Falcon Boy]

shibby said:

The first being always feed some thing to the bird even if it is washed meat to the bird to keep the metabolism working properly.

I am going to disagree with you on this point. If your bird is already in low condition, i would NOT feed washed meat, as it will just deplete the birds energy stores even more. If you want your bird to lose weight but still feed something, personally, i'd feed at least a little something instead of washed meat. It will do the same thing if you need the birds weight to come down, but the bird will actually get a few nutrients rather than expend energy and gain nothing.

[Avatar of Shibby]

No I didn't mean when she's in the low condition, I ment when first bring the birds weight down during the first week of manning while waiting for the bird to eat off the glove. Instead of just starving the bird until it eats, you should entice it to eat some washed meat to keep the metabolism going, instead of just starving the bird for how ever long.
If the bird is in a low condition such as were mine was I would never feed washed meat.

shibby said:

The first being always feed some thing to the bird even if it is washed meat to the bird to keep the metabolism working properly.

Notice there that I said even if I did not say feed it washed meat only.

Feed the bird washed meat
is diffrant that feed the bird some thing even if it's washed meat.

[Deleted]

This is a sticky post on the Michigan Hawking Club forum

Give Your Bird a Break!

By Karen Young



Literally, you do need to give your bird a break – relief from prolonged maintenance at “hunting weight” or during the period when a new bird is being dropped to “hunting weight.” Over the past few months several incidents led me to write this article in that birds have been lost, or nearly lost, by competent falconers who simply were not told to periodically bring up the weight of a bird. Simple, critical, and often overlooked is the need to bring up the weight of a bird who is being dropped, or has been kept at hunting weight for days, or weeks, on end.

This is much more critical for kestrels and other small birds such as sharpies and merlins, but is also true for red-tails, goshawks, and other species although kestrels, in particular, give you little or no time for making amends. This can be especially pertinent for the newly acquired kestrel whose weight is being dropped. * Let’s say it is taking two, three, or four weeks to bring the weight down, perhaps more (and at no more than three grams per day it can take time). The falconer is using this interval to train and habituate the bird, creance it, and condition it to get it ready for hunting. And, if you are like me, it takes longer than anticipated. The result is a bird kept low for an extended period of time, say, three or more weeks.

Or, you have a really keen hunting bird and it is your passion to be out with this bird, so you maintain the bird at its hunting weight so you can be in the field at every opportunity. The result, a bird kept low for an extended period of time, say three or more weeks.

Birds cannot sustain themselves on such a program. The prolonged periods of low weight result in a slow, overall decline, with subsequent organ failure, dehydration, loss of blood values, resulting in a sudden and critical “crash.” The bird unpredictably drops a significant amount of weight, is passive, often too weak to perch or stand, dehydrated, and near death. When such a bird is picked up there is an alarming feeling of the bird having so substance – where there should be a feeling a heft and weight they seem lighter than air. At this time the bird is critical.

Two things have happened. The bird has lost the ability to process food as blood sugars drop dramatically and the bird has become severely dehydrated as no nutrients/fluids are metabolized. Now these are simple explanations – those of you with a better science background could describe it better, more accurately, but the result is the same. The bird is starving to death and no longer has the ability to metabolize food.

At this stage, without intervention the bird will die. While this article is not about what to do once the condition has become acute the protocol for dealing with this condition is covered in detail in Dr. Pat Redig's book, Medical Management of Birds of Prey, (you should have this book in your library but if not, at least obtain a reprint of this article).

Better than treatment is prevention. And it is so simple. Give up a couple or three days in your program to give the bird a break – feed it up, not an overwhelming amount, just enough to bring it up to a weight that will sustain it. And use the very best, most nutritious food for that species – no matter what. Bring the weight up significantly, over a couple or more days. If it is a kestrel, bring it up for a day once a week. If it is a red-tail or goshawk, bring it up for a couple of days every two to three weeks. If it is a kestrel that means ten to twelve grams and if it is a red-tail it means two or three ounces. Enough to give the bird’s system a chance to renew itself on good and wholesome food – not washed meat or other low quality meats used to pacify hunger while providing little nutrient value.

Now you may hear many say, rightfully, “I’ve been hunting this bird for years and never had to worry.” This may be true. A hunting bird is rewarded by being allowed to feed on it’s quarry, or, in some cases, a falconer is savvy enough to know just when and what food to provide without really thinking about it from experience alone. But the bird is fed a regular infusion of a good quantity of high quality food at regular intervals. While this savvy and experience may work for some, most of us benefit from accurate and faithful record keeping. Anyone who knows me knows how easily I fall behind; however, my journal entries are made each and every day, even after several years with the same bird.

For others with less experience attention should be given to the regime of dropping the weight of a bird, especially those with a newly trapped bird. A typical scenario might be as follows: A kestrel is being dropped to hunting weight over a period of three to four weeks. A good day comes along for working the bird. There is an opportunity to be outside on a pleasantly cool day, and maybe there is the opportunity to prolong the outdoor portion of the day’s activities; perhaps the day turns into a long and busy one, after which the bird is fed it’s usual ration of food. Maybe fed less in anticipation the next days activities and progression toward getting the bird ready for the field. Then there is an unforeseen delay in taking up the bird – family events, working late, or some other reason – and by the time the bird is taken up, maybe only a few hours from the routine, it is limp, light, and near death. The bird, only marginally okay due to the prolonged period of weight drop, has exhausted it resources and plummeted. Many small raptors cannot be brought back from this condition. And, what can be so hard to understand is that this dramatic change in condition seems to take place in only a few hours. Actually, it is the accumulation of a slow but steady decline due to malnutrition, which climaxes quickly as the systems of the bird begin to shut down. Liver and other organ failure follow until the condition becomes irreversible (again the scientists can provide very technical and clinical information on this phenomenon), in lay terms, the bird shuts down, organs cease to function, and death follows.

What to do? NEVER, not ever, should you feed up a bird in such low condition. Begin fluid therapy with an electrolyte-balanced solution with easily digestible sugars (LRS with 10% dextrose is good, Pedialyte is good, even flat pop is okay) to bring the bird up to the point where the system has enough “fuel” to digest food. Without fluids and sugars the bird has no “fuel” to digest it’s food. A sour crop will result. After the fluid therapy one can introduce small amounts of “clean” food (meat only, of the highest quality food for the species), then slowly progressing to whole foods while maintaining the fluid therapy. This is not a complete description of the protocol, but again, this is not the focus of this article, rather to alert the falconer that giving the bird a full crop will NOT remedy the situation - it will kill the bird. Also, it is important to keep any bird in low condition warm. Not hot, just nicely warm. For kestrels a bit warmer than room temperature (75 degrees) and for accipiters or buteos, room temperature (65-70 degrees) is good. Most of the calories birds consume go to maintain body heat and by eliminating cool temperatures you can increase the calories used to rebuild body mass – muscle and fat. It is a good rule of thumb (but no more than that) to assume that a bird will regain body mass as slowly as it lost it. So, if a bird has been a week losing body mass to a critical state then it may take a week to regain it. It may be tempting to speed up the process with large amounts of food once the bird can tolerate it, but really slower is better. Then reconditioning must take place to rebuild muscle and stamina. It is dangerous to assume that once the weight is up again that the bird is completely recovered and ready to go.

In some cases the onset of such a low condition can be spotted before the condition becomes critical. Good observation and record keeping will help in the effort to anticipate the need to bring up the weight of a bird. I know that for me, working with my kestrel, Sassy, if I notice even a barely perceptible listlessness and find, upon checking my daily entries in my journal, that she has been low for a while, I know it is time to bring her up for a day or two. The results are dramatic as she once again resumes her vigor. If you notice you have a bird that has been low for a while that is shivering, looks lethargic, is dull-eyed and sleepy, is slow to wake and rouse, and whose response is sluggish in spite of a low weight, then feed it up and you may see a new bird, one that is alert, ready to hunt or train, and one that acts vigorous again. It may cost a few days of hunting, but really, what could be more important than the health of your bird?

[cjinx]

Great find Dave, that gave me a few pointers on my bird. Thanks a lot.