How often you dose is determined by the severity of the case.  If you are in an acute situation, dosing 4-6x daily is appropriate.  If you have solved the underlying cause of anemia and are supplementing long term to restore health, 1-2x daily is appropriate.  Use your judgment and intuition to determine what your specific animal needs, but importantly, do not use this protocol without also addressing the underlying cause through a protocol specific to the issue.

Ingredients for Anemia

The following ingredients are all integral to the protocol and work together to provide a whole food approach to health.

Blackstrap Molasses

Blackstrap molasses is the carrier into which you will mix all of the herbs and powders for this recipe.  It is high in iron and other nutrients and the main goal of any anemia protocol is to nourish the body back to health so it can take over and maintain its own balance again.

Seaweed

Seaweed in the form of kelp (think Thorvin), Iceland moss or Irish Moss is highly nutritive and healing.  Iceland and Irish moss combined in equal parts is ideal, though more expensive than livestock kelp.  The recipe below calls for a total amount – you can use any combination of these three you want or are able to access to get to that total amount.  Example: the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon and you want to use Iceland and Irish moss.  You would simply add 1/2 teaspoon Irish moss and 1/2 teaspoon Iceland moss to total 1 teaspoon for the recipe.

Nettle Leaf

Nettle is my absolute favorite herb and is an important addition to this combination because it is iron rich and filled with nutrients.  I include nettle in every formula where “rebuilding” is the focus.

Chlorella Powder

Chlorella is the whole food from which many commercial chlorophyll products are manufactured.  Let’s go straight to the source and enjoy the synergistic effect of all the constituents together in a whole food rather than an isolate.

Cayenne Powder

Cayenne is high in B vitamins and particularly suited to helping strengthen and heal digestive tissues.  Because many cases of anemia are caused by parasites, cayenne is a healing power house to help us restore gut health and protect while it does so.

Water

When oral dosing, we want to add enough liquid to this recipe to make it easy to drench.  How much that is will depend on the tool you use to drench, so you’ll need to experiment to find the right amount for your method.

Anemia Recipe for a Single Dose

Let’s put this all together, then, in a formula you can produce at home to dose orally during acute and maintenance scenarios.  Instructions are for miniature goats; double the amounts below for standard sized goats.

• 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
• 1 teaspoon seaweed of your choice or total combination of multiple types
• 1 teaspoon nettle leaf
• 1 teaspoon chlorella powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder
• enough water to form a slurry

Dosing Frequency

For acute situations where the animal is in serious condition, we will dose this orally 4-6 times per day.  Intuition is important here – only you can assess your animal directly and know how much it needs.  I like to dose on a step-down basis as follows:

• Begin with the highest dose and assess at the end of the day.
• If the animal has shown improvement, step down by one dose the following day.
• If the animal stays the same, continue that day’s dosage frequency the next day.
• If you have stepped down a dose and the animal worsens, go back to the previous dose, assessing at the end of every day.
• Continue stepping down with improvement of symptoms by one dose daily until no doses remain, always following the assessment and deciding daily if the dose should decrease, stay the same or increase.

For long term care, you can double the dose and give it once daily or follow the instructions below to dose free choice.

Free Choice Dosing in Kelp

If you’re rebuilding a very sick goat over a longer period of time, you can consider leaving out anemia protocol ingredients free choice.  While the ingredients won’t hurt healthy goats, it may not be economical to do this if you have a larger herd.

Make a large batch of the following ingredients:

• 1 cup nettle leaf
• 1 cup chlorella powder
• 3 teaspoons cayenne powder

Store them in a tight-capped glass jar and shake well to combine.  To use this, add it at a rate of 1/4 cup to one pound of kelp.  Put out just enough to last your herd one week.  Chlorella is delicate so will not last out in the elements long term.  If you’re using Iceland and/or Irish Moss, include those to total one cup in the above recipe.  If you are using kelp, no additional kelp is needed.

You can continue to put out this kelp mixture for as long as you think your animal needs it to rebuild.  Generally, if you haven’t seen a near complete healing in a couple of months with this free choice method, you need to consider whether or not the underlying cause has been completely resolved.

Continue the discussion in the anemia forum!