Blood work values

[spunky chick]

I recently had a 2 year old depressed hen. The only other problem she had is that she used to be a great layer and now seldomly lays. When she does, her egg shells are papery thin. I offer free choice oyster shells, ground up egg shells. They are free range hens and have free choice layer pellets. I decided to submit bloodwork to our Veterinary Teaching hospitals' lab. Yo my surprise they had no normal values to compare her blood work to. I also searched the internet and found normal value for her chemistries but not her CBC (Complete bloodwork count). I followed this up by contacting the head of the avian department at the university and was informed that she only does flock health (I assume sick bird=dead bird, no blood work needed). I received some assistance from an exotic avian specialist. But to be honest, he was also slightly uncertain as to how to interpret her CBC. Does anybody have a good reference for chicken specific blood values?? If not, this may become a new area of research for me!

 

[hencam]

Most state vets don't deal with issues in backyard poultry or older birds. They're there for commercial poultry producers. There's very little good science about the health of our backyard birds. When the big farms deal with major disease outbreaks and they usually cull when there's a hint of a problem. They don't keep hens past 2 years, so there's no research on how diseases affect older hens. Your local vet, even an avian vet, is unlikely to be trained in anything poultry. So, no one is going to know what to do with a CBC. One of the best labs out there is at Cornell. You might be able to get some advice from them. Or, do blood tests for some specific diseases that might be affecting her. See their information here:
http://ahdc.vet.cornell.edu/test/list.aspx?Species=Avian&WebDisc=&TstTyp=&Test_Name=

My vet recently sent out samples to them to check form Mareks and Leukosis. You can see my blog post about that here:
http://www.hencam.com/henblog/2011/02/why-old-hens-die/

BTW, have you done a fecal to check for worms? That's a simple test that most vets can handle.
--Terry at www.hencam.com