Regenerative anaemia in alpacas (Vicugna pacos) can lead to a wrong diagnosis of leucocytosis

Microscopy of the blood smear revealed a large number of normoblasts (young, nucleated erythrocytes) (figure 1), which indicated an intense regeneration of the anaemia in this animal. In camelids, they are easier to recognise in blood smears than those from other mammals due to the oval shape of the red blood cells (Pappenheim stain). An increased normoblast count leads to an erroneously increased leucocyte count. [...]automatically measured haematological findings from anaemic animals should be critically reviewed by blood smear microscopy.