Technique for Multiple Venipuncture Blood Sampling in the Chicken

Clearance studies employing the single injection technique require that several blood samples be taken at specified time intervals, following the initial injection of the test substance, to determine the rate of disappearance of that substance from the plasma. The commonly used multiple blood sampling techniques, however, are not always satisfactory in such studies: (1) the difficulties encountered from obscurement of the brachial vein of birds by hematomas during multiple sampling from that vessel are well known; (2) the possibility of hemodynamic changes resulting from multiple heart punctures makes this technique undesirable; (3) cannulation of a brachial vein with polyethylene tubing may be used to obtain multiple blood samples, but due to the ligation and subsequent collapse of the cannulated vein upon removal of the polyethylene tubing, such techniques do not allow blood sampling from the same site in repeated clearance measurements on the same animal at later dates. Also, if…