Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am working on a master's thesis about stress in snakes and was hoping someone could give me some info on blood collection in snakes.

Snakes have a ventral coccygeal vein that can be used to administer medications or to draw blood. depending on the size of the snakes and frequency of blood draws you may be able to use that. Another option is to perform cardiocentesis (get blood from the heart).
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Michael McFadden, M.S., D.V.M.

Hello, I made my graduation thesis about Boids Blood Parameters some years ago. I made different blood sampling from many different kind of Boids( Boas, Ball pythons, Burmese, Sanzinia ecc)
So I'm glad you to give you an help if you tell me exactly what you want to know!
Regards
Silvio

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking about measuring levels of corticosteroids to assess stress in colubrids. I don't know much about endocrinology, and I haven't been able to find much literature on this parameter in snakes, although it does seem that it's been done a bit in lizards. Thanks for any help you could give.

I have now gotten to the point where I will be collecting blood via the caudal vein and doing leukocyte differentials to determine stress levels. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what stain to use? Many papers suggest Wright-Geimsa, but another grad student has suggested Leishmans. Thanks!

Don't know about your staining, but I have collected blood from the caudal vein over a hundred times in rattlesnakes, and it is quite effective. I do not recommend cardiopucture as mentioned above.

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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian