Interesting Requests

I know I've talked a lot about spam emails and all, but sometimes we do get actual requests from legitimate places....  wanted to share one with you:

Dear NWI Chinchillas,

I am a student and my lab is interested in studying the genomes of a wide variety of species. Zoos have mainly provided the lab with leftover blood samples, but they do not exhibit chinchillas. Although biological companies have filled some gaps in our species list, we alarmingly receive excessively more blood than requested. What I ask for is a couple hundred microliters or a few milliliters of blood from each individual chinchillas – preferably female.

When you take your chinchillas to a veterinarian or handle their checkups yourself, could you save the leftover blood or tissue sample(s)? As we do for the zoos, all the supplies; i.e., ice packs, needles, vacutainers, Styrofoam boxes, and the return shipping labels, are provided, shipped, and paid for by the lab.

When a research paper is published, the sources of the samples must be listed, so if you do not mind the hassle of obtaining and labeling each sample and sending them to us, then your company will be recognized as the lab’s source of chinchillas.

Thank you in advance for considering my request.

Regards,

And my response:

Hi,

When our chinchillas go to the vet, most health issues can be determined by a fecal test or general exam -- basically, determined through some non-invasive procedure.  Chinchillas do not handle anesthesia well, so taking blood or a tissue sample is a health risk in and of itself.  In the few instances where our vets have taken blood or tissue, I believe they take just enough to run the bloodwork / scans.  As far as I am aware, I don't believe there is blood or tissue left over.  

I'm happy to keep your request in mind and save this email, should we end up with chinchillas at the vet that would require bloodwork / tissue samples that might result in some left over.  Though to be perfectly honest, we've only had those types of procedures done maybe a handful of times in the last 14 years, so I wouldn't anticipate a high volume, if any, of samples.

Have a nice night!