Abstract This study was conducted on five donkeys (Equus asinus) to investigate the effects of thiopental Total Intra-Venous Anesthesia (TIVA) approach on heart, respiration, blood gas, and body temperature of the donkey. Atropine-acepromazine-xylazine premedicated donkeys were anesthetized with 5% solution of thiopental 7mg/kg and maintained for 100 min. with a thiopental solution (8 mg/Kg BW in 500 ml normal saline). Heart and respiratory rates increased and temperature decreased at 10 min. post anesthesia. PaCO2 and bicarbonate increased resulting in decreased PH after anesthesia. There were no marked ECG changes. Animals were in sternal recumbency for 66±6.52 min after interruption of anesthetic infusion. Thus thiopental TIVA appeared to produce good surgical anesthesia of long duration in donkeys but the recovery period was too long.

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