Anemia roo!

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by Gabrielle
(MA)

Question

Anemia roo!: We found out that our chickens have mites, I am not sure how long they have had them for, and my rooster has been sick for a while now.

We are treating them with DE, and just bought Sevin dust ( I heard its good ?)
I also heard that mites can cause Anemia.

My roo is still a little droopy, so I thought that maybe he has anemia. If he has it what should I do? What should I feed him?

Here is a pic of him. He stands around a lot with his feathers fluffed sometimes. Also his tail is down sometimes. He walks slow. He eats and drinks but feels thin.

Now I am feeding him eggs, yogurt, a bit of honey, cracked corn all with his normal feed. He doesn’t eat that much.

Answer
Parasites can cause Anemia. It’s not a disease, but a condition associated with Iron deficiency.

An Anemic animal or person is unusually tired and low energy. In this case, possibly the mites have sucked so much blood out of him that his blood quality is poor and he is weak.

I have a favorite product, available at most feed stores. It’s a vitamin and electrolyte powder that can be mixed with dry feed or water.

(It would be good for all your chickens.) I just checked my package and it does contain Iron. All the other vitamins will help him, too, and the electrolytes will help restore proper hydration and blood chemistry.

Some foods that contain Iron are dark leafy vegetables, red meat, liver and sunflower seeds.

At this stage of his problem, his not eating or drinking well, you might want to get him some liquid concentrated vitamins for chickens, sometimes called a drench, for depleted animals.

Hopefully he will recover. I would continue to baby him and coax him to eat and drink, keep him warm with a heat lamp, and give the recommended doses of vitamins to help pull him through this.

Apple and grapes would be good fruits to give him, chopping them up small for ease of eating.

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