An official website of the United States government.
Blood collection is a common procedure in laboratory animal and wildlife research as well as in captive animal care. Refinement, as part of the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal use), should be considered when selecting a blood collection site and how the blood will be collected. This suggests, when you are collecting blood from animals, it's important to consider collection sites that are the least painful/distressful for them and ensure that the appropriate blood volume is collected. Positive reinforcement training (rewarding the animal for completing the behavior or task asked of them) may also be used to reduce their stress and allow for them to remain awake during collection.
Blood Collection from Laboratory Animals Literature
Below are results from literature searches on blood collection from common laboratory animals. If you want to find literature on this topic for a certain species, edit the animal species search string to only include terms for the species of interest. To learn more about building search strings, visit AWIC's alternatives literature searching page or if you need help finding information, contact us.
NAL's Collections
PubMed
Resources
Blood Sampling
National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).
NC3Rs shares a resource hub on blood collection in various laboratory animals to help personnel choose the most appropriate and humane technique for blood sampling.
NORINA Database: Blood Sampling
Norecopa.
The NORINA (A Norwegian Inventory of Alternatives) database contains resources (videos, webpages, journal articles, slide decks, and more) on refinements to blood sampling of research animals. Some of these resources are NAL materials provided by AWIC.