Anne says: >I'm wondering if a good portion of that cost was actually lab fees because >you vet wanted to send out body parts for analysis? Next time you might >want to ask if this is the case, and if you skipped the lab work what the >cost would be for the vet himself to take a look. Sometimes vets will do >the necropsy for free as a learning experience for the vet if no lab costs >are involved. There really is no substitute for a full autopsy, with tissue samples forwarded to a pathologist for microscopic examination. Gross autopsies, while they are expedient, in my experience, when performed by the average practitioner (FML vet excepted, of course, don't yield a lot of information. They tend to yield off-the-cuff analysis and misinformation, which can then be reported back to the FML, etc. If you are going to have an autopsy, make sure a pathologist is involved. Patholoigst have years of training invested in looking at necropsy samples which is invaluable in these cases. With kindest regards, Bruce Williams, dVM [Posted in FML issue 3202]