PRELIMINARY STUDY OF HEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS IN HERZEGOVINIAN DONKEY

Herzegovinian donkey is a very important animal resource of Bosnia and Herzegovina. There have been no works attempted at determining the normal values of hematological parameters of Herzegovinian donkey. For this reason, the objective of the present study was to investigate some hematological parameters in Herzegovinian donkey. The research was performed on 30 apparently healthy donkeys (18 female and 12 male) of ages from 1 to 20 years. Blood samples (3 ml) were obtained by jugular vein puncture (vena jugularis externa) in vacuum tubes with EDTA. The mean value of hematocrit was 29.19 %, hemoglobin concentration 10.6 g/dl, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration 36.33 g/dl, white blood cells 9.33 x109/L, granulocytes (109/L) 5.45 x109/L, granulocytes (%) 59.47%, lymphocyte/monocyte (109/L) 3.89 x109/L, lymphocyte/monocyte (%) 40.53% and platelet cells 148.97 x109/L. Parameters were determined using an automated analyzer IDEXX QBC VET AutoRead. Data were analyzed by SPSS V 15. All hematological parameters (except platelet cells) were consistent with the recommended reference ranges for donkeys, and the values found in literature so far. Platelet cells values were much lower than in the literature for the other donkey breeds and the recommended reference ranges for donkeys. The slight differences found between our results and those reported in the previous works confirm the need for further studies to investigate the reference values of hematological parameters of Herzegovinian donkey. This work is a contribution to the study of hematological parameters of Herzegovinian donkey, and we expect these data to be applied to the further studies