Centrifuge First Plasma Run !!

 

Yesterday afternoon was the very first time the Centrifuge was being used to harvest some life saving plasma.  Gerry & Lucy from Coire Alpacas came prepared with two bags filled with blood donated from two of their resident stud boys.  Their vets had harvested the blood then it was transferred over to us for the big day. The aim was to harvest some plasma to have in case of any emergencies that might arrive, as their cria are due any time now.

 

 

 

The Centrifuge worked well, it is a time consuming process, however the end result is worth all the effort.  It took approximately four hours to decant the blood into the centrifuge, we did not know what ratio we would obtain from each spin, but we were very pleased with the amount of plasma harvested.  We did eleven spins of 120ml, each spin gave over 60ml which is more than one full syringe.

 

We ended up with 11 full 60ml syringes.  I was doing the drawing off from the blood bag and decanting into the centrifuge tubes and Gerry was busy drawing off the plasma into the syringes.  The plasma was placed into a freezer bag and taken back to Coire HQ !

 

It was around 7pm when Gerry finally left with his precious cargo !!

 

I think it was fair to say that we were both impressed with the Centrifuge process .... it takes time, but you can't rush these things and the opportunity to have your own plasma can be an invaluable one. 

 

 Unfortunately up here in northern Scotland this option is just not there, but with having the centrifuge facility here ... now it is !

 

Hopefully it will not be needed, but it is a great peace of mind to know that you have the option in emergency cases.

 

So the Centrifuge has done it's maiden voyage ..... I shall tweak a few minor adjustments but overall it was a great success.  I think we both quite enjoyed the whole process, I was very satisfied that we had managed to obtain our goal  .... A good job, well done.