A Technique for Bleeding Chickens from the Jugular Vein

The standard technique for obtaining large quantities of blood (50 c.c.) from chickens usually involves cardiac puncture (Sloan and Wilgus, 1930; Andrews, 1944; Genest, 1946; MacArthur, 1950). Law’s (1960) method for obtaining blood samples from the jugular vein of turkeys, has had limited success when applied to chickens. A somewhat different technique, successfully used by the authors for a number of years, which facilitates quantity bleedings from the jugular vein of chickens is described here. When bleeding chickens from the jugular vein, the operator should hold the head of the chicken in the palm of his left hand, with the bleeding apparatus aimed towards the body of the bird, while an assistant restrains the bird on its left side (Figure 1). Normally the right jugular vein is situated beneath the lateral neck space between the head and ventral feather tracts. The vein becomes prominent when occluded by the assistant …