Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Tropical Animal Health and Production (2023) 55:306 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-023-03744-8 REGULAR ARTICLES Assessing total erythrocyte count as a potential attribute for estimating hemoglobin in Cholistani cattle Umer Farooq 1  · Musadiq Idris 1  · Nouman Sajjad 1  · Muhammad Abrar Afzal 1 Received: 23 December 2022 / Accepted: 12 September 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023 Abstract The main objective of the study was to confrm whether a specifc and constant interrelationship exists between total eryth- rocyte count (TEC) and hemoglobin (Hb) concentration in Cholistani cattle blood and to navigate the potential of TEC for estimating Hb level in Cholistani cattle (n = 264) grouped as per gender (males, n = 122; females, n = 142) and age (young, n = 140; adults, n = 124). The TEC and Hb (HbD) estimation was carried out through veterinary hematology analyzer. The Hb was also calculated as TEC × 3 and was termed as HbC. Linear regression was implied, and accordingly, scatterplots were drawn between TEC, HbD, HbC, and corrected Hb (CHB). The regression prediction equation hence attained was used to deduce corrected hemoglobin (CHb). A signifcant (P ≤ 0.05) diference was noticed between HbD and HbC. A non-signifcant (P ≥ 0.05) diference was noticed, however, between HbD and CHb. Tests of level of agreement indicated a higher Cronbach’s alpha and intraclass correlation coefcient (0.682 for average measures) for HbD and CHb as compared to that for HbD and HbC (0.559 for average measures). A convention of Hb concentration as three times of TEC (× 3) is not valid for Cholistani cattle. A diferent pen-side hematological formula, i.e., Hb (g/dL) = 0.66(TEC) + 6.1, however, provides a better estimate of Hb from the TEC in cattle blood. Using hemocytometry for TEC in the feld, all the stakeholders associ- ated with veterinary research, academics, and practice may beneft from this formula in resource-poor countries. Keywords Total erythrocyte count · Hemoglobin · Cholistani cattle Introduction It has been well elucidated that the physical examination allied with proper history provide an insight to the health of an individual both in case of human and veterinary medi- cal practice. However, in order to attain a defnitive diag- nosis, blood analysis is one of the vital and precise tools being used widely (Hippel 2007; DeNicola 2011). Human clinical hematology has been far ahead in medical sciences compared to veterinary. Last decade or so, however, has wit- nessed soaring trend in veterinary hematology and its role as a diagnostic tool for many blood-borne diseases (DeNicola 2011). Resultantly, the manual methods of hematology such as total erythrocyte count (TEC) and total white blood cell count (TWBC) through hemocytometers (Sandhaus 2016), packed cell volume (PCV) through microcentrifugation (World Health Organization 2000), diferential leukocyte count (DLC) through stained blood smears (Hu et al. 1993), and hemoglobin (Hb) levels through cyanmethemoglobin (Kapoor et al. 2002; Srivastava et al. 2014) have been replaced by the advent of 3-part and 5-part automated vet- erinary hematology analyzers. However, the manual hema- tological methods have not yet lost their relevance as they are still being used for validation of hematology analyzers as well as for quality control. In human medical practice, while using hematologi- cal attributes for diagnosis, a “rule of three” is implied for TEC, PCV, and Hb to ensure the correctness of deduced hematological parameters (Doig and Zhang 2017; Clark et al. 2019). This traditional “rule of three” implies that (a) PCV (%) = Hb (g/dL) × 3; (b) Hb (g/dL) = TEC (without the count of 3) × 3; and (c) PCV = TEC (without the count of 3) × 9. However, there is a paucity of literature regarding such hematological formulae and validations for veteri- nary medical sciences. The scarce research reported is on indigenous African cattle (Turkson and Ganyo, 2015) and some avian orders (Velguth et al. 2010). The veterinarians, * Umer Farooq umer.farooq@iub.edu.pk 1 Department of Physiology, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan