The blood of the American horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, is used to prevent life-threatening infections by ensuring the sterility of products that are used medically. However, the harvest of this blood causes lethal and sublethal effects that might be mitigated by providing food during this process. The aim of this study was to determine if feeding would help animals regain healthy levels of blood proteins and activity more quickly. Three groups of animals (n=24) were exposed to the standard 54 hour biomedical bleeding procedure. Two groups (@8) were fed every two-three days with green crab/blood or shrimp pellets, while another group (n=8) was not fed, and another was a control (n=8). While activity declined significantly in all four groups (P0.05). These results suggest that efforts to ameliorate the negative effects of bleeding might be better focused on reducing stress on the animals during the procedure rather than feeding.
