Drawing blood

[AFH]

How is the best way for a vet to draw blood for a screen? How much is needed? I'm not going to do it, but I need to get a panther a screen of calcium, phosphorous, and uric acid for possible gout and I want to know before taking him in.

Thanks!

 

[kinyonga]

In my experience, its been taken from the tail "vein".

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy Alex,
As Kinyonga already mentioned, there is a vein or artery located on the underside of the tail after the hemipene pouch. When they hit it right, the vet can get a full sample without too much effort.

 

[AFH]

Thanks, both of you.

 

[lbesok]

From our experiences sometimes it may be hard to find the vein, but once it's found only a small amount of blood is necessary.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

From our experiences sometimes it may be hard to find the vein, but once it's found only a small amount of blood is necessary.

Our vet wouldn't do young, or small, chameleons, for fear of causing damage. This was especially frustrating when we were losing WC juvenile Meller's to some mystery disease. We were unable to get a blood draw. Looking back on it, I now realize I could have suggested to the vet that we were losing them anyway, one at a time, why not risk a blood draw? We did change vets during this episode, because our first vet, whom I liked very much initially, had a strong bias against WC chams, and pretty much felt that she ought not to be wasting her time, and briefly lectured me on the evils of bringing WC chams into this country. The vet we now use has worked with wild reptiles in the field, at their origin, and delighted in trying his best to save them.

Some physicians allow politics to get in the way. It's not like she was so busy she had to perform triage, and preserve her time for more worthy patients. She ran a Bird and Exotics clinic. Sorry- that's my mini-rant for the day, or week, what-ever. I guess you can tell I still haven't gotten over that episode.

 

[fox3060]

Like everyone else, the tail is the most desirable draw point. FYI, your cham is going to hate the Sh!t out of your vet for this, (on to my point) his or her tail is most likely going to turn a very dark color even black, and could stay this way for a little while.
I've had this happen without notice and I just about clocked the vet when I returned to pick up my baby. He assured me that the color would come back (even though the tail looked dead) and it did after a few days.
Good luck and I hope the counts are good!

 

[leanna156]

When my panther had blood drawn it was probably about 1 mL of blood from a vein in the base of the tail. He weights 120 g and was a little lethargic after that for a few hours. The vet had no trouble at all finding the vein or anything.