earliest age of testing

[lrininger]

I was just reading Phizer website for pha testing, they say hair samples can't be collected for calves under 8 months old. I was wondering if anyone was testing their calves with blood samples, & what was the earliest age you were doing so.

Thank you for any replies or suggestions

Linda

[kansasdexters]

Hi Linda,

Igenity can test tail hair samples from young calves, if they receive a sufficient sample. We have tested calves as young as 2 months old for PHA using tail hair samples. In order to do this, you need to submit 60 to 80 hair follicles from the calf -- and this is a much larger sample than what is needed from older animals. More follicles are necessary from young calves because their hair follicles are much smaller than the older animals.

I suspect that Pfizer decided they didn't want to mess with testing calves younger than 8 months for PHA because they weren't consistently getting an adequate amount of tail hairs from the people requesting the testing on younger animals.


Patti

[lrininger]

Thanks Patti,

but I kind of wanted to do business closer to home. Phizer, is about 15 miles from our place. I still might use them, as I do have a vet visit coming up, & might do that too. She did the blood samples on the bulls last year, right in her parking lot of office. Really is amazing, the more she does, it isn't really that much more dollars. Certainly not like going to dr.

Linda