During a 7 a.m. feline blood draw I reached for the lavender top with EDTA for our CBC. Am I ticking the right trivia box, and do you flag any exceptions in your clinic to prevent redraws and keep the patient calm?
Do you pre-warm the limb and gently invert 8–10 times to cut clots and stress? Yep, ‘lavender top with EDTA’ is the CBC tube, but with cats I make a smear right away to spot platelet clumps (they love to clump) and, if needed, use a citrate backup for platelets to avoid a redraw.
You’re right on the trivia — “lavender top with EDTA” for CBC — but for those 7 a.m. cats I grab a lavender microtainer and make a smear immediately so platelet clumps don’t wreck the count. Caveat: if clumping still shows, a tiny sodium citrate redraw for platelets (with dilution correction) has saved me from repeat pokes, . Do you fill right to the line to keep the EDTA ratio on point?