Blood Sampling from Laboratory Rabbits

Proper method of blood collection (BC) has significant consequences in many biological productions and research activities. Due to the challenges of blood collection from laboratory rabbits, cardiac puncture is routinely performed as the routine method of blood collection in many biological material production and research centres. Besides being ethically unacceptable, this method causes high morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, cardiac puncture is very distressful for anaesthetised animals and greatly disturbs the measured data. The aim of the current study was to provide detailed technical instructions for a superior method of large volume blood collection from laboratory rabbits.

This study was performed during the course of the complement production from 91 white New Zealand rabbits aging 6-36 months and weighing 1.2-3.5 kg. Acetylpromazine was injected intramuscularly. To avoid vasoconstriction caused by needle puncture, nerves of the central ear artery were blocked via local infiltration of lidocaine. Arterial access was established using modified Butterfly catheters. At the end of the blood collection, arterial haemostasis performed appropriately.

During 3 months and 155 episodes of blood sampling, 2384 ml blood was collected via this method (15.4 ± 3.5 ml/rabbit). The mortality rate related to the blood sampling method was nil until 3 months following completion of the study which showed significant statistical difference (P < 0.001) in comparison to the data retrieved from the archives of the centre regarding previous method of cardiac puncture (mortality = 19 rabbits).

Due to the significantly lower morbidity/mortality of the presented technique, we recommend it as the proper method of large volume blood sampling in laboratory rabbits.