Blood Technics for Chickens

AN ATOMIC Energy Project undertaken at this Laboratory involved numerous blood determinations made over a two-year period and, prelininary to the actual work, a comparative study of technics suitable for avian blood was made. The technics selected have been applied to over 2,500 blood samples and have given results which appear to be reliable. During the period when work was in progress, inquires were received con-concerning the technics which had been selected and the development of modifications which had been found useful. In order to make this information generally available, a report covering the following subjects has been prepared: (1) description of a unit tray for handling large numbers of blood samples, (2) determination of avian hemoglobin, (3) accuracy of hemoglobin pipettes, (4) hematocrit with the Van Allen pipettes, (5) composition of the buffy coat, (6) a shaker for red blood cell pipettes, (7) variability in samples of Wright’s stain, …