I recently brought my hawk home from the hospital. She is still regaining strength from severe anemia and was emaciated. For now, she's housed indoors and eating 150gs a day in a couple of tidbit feedings.
When she's ready, she will slowly need to be reconditioned. I apologize if there's a thread on this already. I'm trying to balance a lot right now.
Would anybody be willing to help me with a plan to safely and successfully 🙏 recondition her back to a healthy strength?
She's a second year female and this is our second year together. Thank you!!
For starters, how did a second year captive hawk get severe anemia this early in the season?
There’s no logical reason to drop a hawk’s weight into anemia for training purposes. If it requires that kind of handling to be trained, you need to fatten her up and release her.
Secondly, tidbitting a hawk with anemia is like feeding candy to a diabetic. Tidbits are nutrient and whole food deficient. They need organs, bones, flesh, fur, feathers, etc to have a well balanced diet for their nutrient base and development.
You need to immediately feed that hawk whole animal foods, bone fur and organs intact. Start small ( weight wise) so a large meal doesn’t cause sour crop, a common malady that occurs when hawks are anemic.
She will need 6 weeks of this treatment without any weight reductions for hunting Or training. Squirrel, mice, quail, starlings, should be the meals of choice.
I would also be ordering hawk supplements like VitaHawk or ProVital Raptor Boost to get her base micro nutrients back to base line.
DO NOT CONTINUE TO DROP WEIGHT. Give her a solid month of dietary rehab, and work on glove manning.
Immunosuppressive hawks are highly susceptible to ASPER infections, Frounce & West Nile virus. Ask you attending vet to do a parasite check as well. In that condition it’s highly likely to have worms or capilaria working against her.
Last Edit: Dec 5, 2021 7:23:13 GMT -5 by echotadog
It is good to have an end to Journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the End. - Ernest Hemingway
Hey echotag- just seeing this reply. I wasn't aware that cropping up your bird once a week was a vital component - yes, I messed up but learned from it. She was holding weight according to the scale but I wasn't checking her keel consistently.
She was getting whole prey in tidbit form. Anyways, she had follow up with a full blood panel, fecal, and exam. Clean bill of health. She's is good.
Thank you for your response. I m learning a lot from this forum.