Samples and analyses: what, when, how to send, and reading a result with the veterinarian

This lesson is part of Farm health technician specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

A well-taken sample is the only thing that allows the veterinarian to move from a hypothesis to a certainty: what his eyes cannot see, the laboratory finds, provided the sample is the right one, taken at the right time, in the right container, kept at the right temperature, arrived within the right time, and labelled without error. A badly taken sample costs the price of the analysis, three days of waiting, and a false result that misleads. This lesson teaches the health technician what he may sample when the veterinarian asks him to, how to pack and send it, and how to read the result afterwards with the veterinarian, never interpreting it alone.

• ✓Distinguish the samples the technician takes at the veterinarian’s request from those that remain the veterinarian’s
• ✓Take, pack, label and keep a sample of droppings, litter, water, feed and carcasses
• ✓Organise the dispatch to the laboratory within the cold chain and the time limits
• ✓Read the structure of an analysis result with the veterinarian, without interpreting alone

1. What the technician samples, what the veterinarian samples
2. Taking and packing: droppings, litter, feed
3. Water: two points, a sterile bottle, 24 hours
4. Sending: the cold chain, the time limit, the dispatch form
5. Reading a result with the veterinarian, never alone
6. Going further

• •The veterinarian prescribes the analysis and interprets the result; the technician takes the simple samples he asks for (droppings, litter, water, feed, fresh carcasses, swabs) and never blood or acts on the live animal.
• •A representative sample: droppings from ten points mixed (50 g), feed from three bags (500 g + a reference kept until the end of the flock), water at the tower and at the end of line (500 mL, sterile bottle, after 2 to 3 minutes of flow).
• •Label with a marker on the container: farm, house, age, date, time, nature, sampler, veterinarian; cooler 4 to 8 °C, never frozen; water and droppings at the laboratory within 24 hours, litter and feed within 48 hours.
• •The dispatch form copies the veterinarian’s prescription; the health register keeps what, when, by whom, left and received at what time, result expected.
• •Reading a result = checking the identification, the condition of the sample, the method, the figure and its unit, the reference, the comment; passing it to the veterinarian without comment and reading with him; never announcing or deciding alone.