Obtain Specimen

For bowel:

• Open 18-26 cm (8-12”) of bowel.
  • Push aside bowel contents with gloved finger or tongue depressor.
  • Swab aggressively over the length of the open bowel, so that the swab presses deeply into mucosa and may even scrape off some mucosa.

    

     
    • Be careful to hold swab shaft only at the end to prevent contamination
• For solid organs, follow protocol for aseptically collecting bacterial culture swabs from solid tissues
• Check expiration date on transport media
  • If blue/purple ring more than 3 mm thick at top of media do not use
• Loosen screw cap
  • Do not tip tube horizontally with cap open. There is an oxygen-excluding gas cap above the semisolid media
• Insert swab into media once, to ~5mm from bottom
  • Do not pull swab in and out
• Break or cut swab shaft evenly with lip of tube below the point of hand contact
• Replace and tighten cap ASAP
  • Do not over tighten
• Label tube with animal name/number, owner name, date, and site swabbed
• Hold at room temperature (20-25ºC/68-77ºF) prior to shipping
  • Do not refrigerate
• Pack and deliver to lab within 72 hr of inoculation
  • Do not chill
• Protect from temperature extremes in transit
  • Keep at 20-25ºC/68-77ºF)

Other Information

• Media has a color agent that changes to blue/purple when exposed to oxygen
• Some blue/purple change will occur after specimen is inserted in the media. This should convert back to normal color due to reducing agents in the media that remove oxygen
• Aerobic and fungal culture can also be performed from samples in this media

VSS-WEB-001-V02 DL-951 11/17