Blood work can recognize an abnormality before you even see clinical signs of specific disease, thus protecting your horse and other horses.

Types of Blood Collection Tubes

1) Green top tube containing heparin (yields plasma for biochemistry).

2)  Red top tube with no anticoagulant (yields serum for biochemistry).

3)  Tiger strip green top tube containing gel and heparin or plasma separator tube (yields plasma and makes separation of red blood cells easier with centrifugation, but hardly ever used, always separate plasma from the silicon tube and put in a plain or non-anticoagulant tube).

4)  Silicone-based or serum separator  red top tube with no anticoagulant (used frequently for large animals, which take a while to undergo clot retraction, silicon makes it easy to separate serum and cells, however serum should be removed off the silicone gel and placed in a plain or non-anticoagulant tube.

5) Purple top tube containing EDTA as an anticoagulant (used for hematology and cytology on body cavity fluids).

6) Blue top tube containing sodium citrate as an anticoagulant (for obtaining plasma for coagulation panel testing, collect appropriate volume of blood for the amount of citrate, separate plasma from cells and ship on ice or freeze plasma and ship on dry ice).