: What size is the vial vets use to take the blood of a domestic cat? If a cat goes to the vet, they might take its blood. How big is the vial they use? I assume it can't be the same size as the vial they use for humans because

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The vials do come in different sizes and I suspect will vary by manufacturer and laboratory. Easier to answer is the amount of blood needed for various tests.

To run chemistries (usually serum is needed), we have 4 mL tubes, in which the lab likes us to put at least 1 mL, preferably more. The amount of serum needed will depend on the number of tests you need run – to assess a few electrolytes, maybe a BUN/creatinine to look at the kidneys, and a couple of liver enzymes, not much serum will be needed, but if you want to do lots of other tests then obviously more blood will need to be taken.

To run complete blood counts (CBC) for cats our standard tubes are the same size as chemistry tubes, in which the lab requires 1 mL of blood. These tubes contain EDTA to stop the blood from clotting, and the important thing with these tubes is that there is the correct ratio of blood to EDTA, otherwise the results will be skewed. As cats can be tricky to get blood from sometimes, we do also have mini tubes that only require 0.5 mL (or at a stretch 0.3 mL) on which a full CBC can still be run – but the lab can sometimes get upset if you are too stingy with the blood you submit. Some other tests are run on whole blood and in these cases additional blood may be required.

Other more specialized testing such as for clotting times does require other blood tubes.

For your "standard" cat bloodwork including a chemistry, CBC, and T4, the vet will need to draw at least 1.5-2 mL minimum.

For reference I currently use Idexx and the details on their tubes are shown in their Sample Collection Tube Guide.